A PLACE IN THE BAND

Women in Bluegrass and American Roots Music

A Place in the Band

This discussion series is part of a project by the Blue Ridge Music Center that began in 2020, honoring the one hundredth anniversary of women being granted the right to vote.

North Carolina singer-songwriter Laurelyn Dossett speaks with female musicians, and women involved in music management and promotion, to share their stories, talk about their experiences, and express their hopes for the future. Their individual stories highlight the collective strength and future possibilities for women in bluegrass and American roots music.

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The recording of the “A Place in the Band: Women in Bluegrass and American Roots Music” virtual conference held on February 26, 2021, is now available on YouTube.

This  conference brought together several prominent women at the forefront of bluegrass and American roots music, both musicians and others involved behind the scenes in the music industry.

The conference included a keynote address from Alison Brown, concert sets from the Alison Brown Quartet and the First Ladies of Bluegrass, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Annie Staninec & John Kael, Leyla McCalla, and Missy Raines & Ben Surratt.

Three panel discussions were held on issues related to woman in the music industry, musicians, and next steps & actions. Panel members and discussion facilitators included Claire Armbruster, Jamie Katz Court, Laurelyn Dossett, Cathy Fink, Kimberly Glick, Leyla McCalla, Missy Raines, Lisa Schwartz, Annie Staninec, and Trisha Tubbs.

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Laurelyn Dossett
Laurelyn Dossett
Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens
Missy Raines
Missy Raines
Amy Grossmann
Amy Grossmann
Alice Gerrard
Alice Gerrard
Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis
Amythyst Kiah
Amythyst Kiah
Traci Thomas
Traci Thomas
Ruth Ungar
Ruth Ungar
Kristin Scott Benson
Kristin Scott Benson
Haley Miller Coots
Haley Miller Coots
Laurelyn Dossett
Laurelyn Dossett
Laurelyn Dossett
Playlist for Full Interviews
Interview Excerpts

Laurelyn Dossett

Laurelyn Dossett is the interviewer for this series.

Singer/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett lives and writes in the piedmont of North Carolina, and her songs tend to reflect the stories of the region, both traditional and contemporary. One of the most sought-after voices in creative collaborations, she co-founded the popular regional folk-bluegrass band Polecat Creek with singing partner Kari Sickenberger in 1997. Laurelyn is a frequent performer at regional music festivals such as Merlefest and has been a guest on the radio show Prairie Home Companion. 

In recent years Laurelyn has partnered with Triad Stage’s Preston Lane on five plays featuring regional folklore and original music: Brother Wolf (2006), Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity (2006), Bloody Blackbeard (2008), Providence Gap (2010) and Snow Queen (2013). An adaptation of Bloody Blackbeard toured NC schools in 2009, and both Brother Wolf and Beautiful Star are published by Playscripts and have gone on to have professional productions in cities across the U.S. 

A song from Brother Wolf, “Anna Lee,” was featured on Levon Helm’s Grammy-winning record, Dirt Farmer, is included in the documentary film about Helm’s life, called “Ain’t in it for my Health,” and is featured on the 2011 Grammy-winning cd Levon Helm’s “Ramble at the Ryman.” Another song Dossett wrote “Leaving Eden,” became the title track for the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops’ 2012 release

Commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony, Dossett and the symphony premiered her song cycle, “The Gathering: A Winter’s Tale in Six Songs, in November 2011. She performed with singer and fiddler Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, legendary Nashville mandolinist Mike Compton, and North Carolina’s own banjo virtuoso, Joe Newberry. The accompanying cd, “The Gathering,” was released to critical acclaim, including top holiday picks from the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and USA Today.

Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: New Basement Tapes and Our Native Daughters

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Rhiannon Giddens

Rhiannon Giddens is Greensboro, NC native, and a celebrated artist who excavates the past to reveal truths about our present. A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Giddens has been Grammy-nominated six times, and won once, for her work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a group she co-founded. She was nominated this year for her collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other (2019), an album that is at once a condemnation of “othering” and a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience. She has performed for the Obamas at the White House and acted in two seasons of the hit television series Nashville. Giddens has been profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, the New York Times, and NPR’s Fresh Air, among other outlets. She is featured in Ken Burns’s Country Music series, which aired on PBS last fall. In 2019, Giddens also formed the band Our Native Daughters with three other black female banjo players and contributed to and produced their album Songs of Our Native Daughters (2019), which tells stories of historic black womanhood and survival.

 

Missy Raines
Missy Raines

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Advice, Observations, Experiences

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Missy Raines

Singer, songwriter, and bass player, GRAMMY® nominated Missy Raines was the first woman to win IBMA’s Bass Player of the Year award in 1998, and has gone on to win this honor eight times, more than any other bass player in the history of the organization. Raines has proven herself without doubt as an iconic bluegrass instrumentalist.

Missy Raines started her career playing for Bluegrass Legend Eddie Adcock. She then joined The Brother Boys from Johnson City, and began working with Ed Snodderly, who became an important influence on Raines’ musical approach and writing.  Soon after, she joined Claire Lynch and The Front Porch String Band whom she toured off and on until leaving to pursue her solo career in 2009.

With her latest album, Royal Traveller, Raines has stepped into the spotlight as a songwriter for the first time. The album digs deep into Raines’ family life and her upbringing in West Virginia.  Royal Traveller was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Bluegrass Album” and is Raines’ third album for Compass Records. It’s the first produced by Compass’ owner and founder, and renowned banjo player Alison Brown. 

Amy Grossmann
Amy Grossmann

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selestion: Women in the Industry

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Amy Grossmann

Amy Grossmann is the President, CEO, and Director of The North Carolina Folk Festival. She was appointed to that role after when the Festival transitioned from The National Folk Festival to the North Carolina Folk Festival in 2018. Amy was chosen by Arts Greensboro to serve as the Local Director for the National Folk Festival from 2015-2018. In her role as Festival Director, Grossmann oversees all administrative, logistical, production and financial elements of the festival, and plays a leadership role in managing local operations—from vendor relationships to volunteer needs

From 2001 through 2006, Grossmann was the Program Manager/Logistics Coordinator for the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA), where she worked with several host communities presenting National Folk Festivals as well as former National host cities producing legacy festivals. From 2007 to 2012 she was the Community Events Director at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto, California. From 2012 through 2014, Grossmann was a Program Director for the Maryland State Arts Council, where she oversaw general operating and touring grant programs.

Alice Gerrard
Alice Gerrard

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: On Becoming a Musician

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Alice Gerrard

Alice Gerrard of Durham, North Carolina, started her musical career singing with Hazel Dickens as the duo Hazel and Alice. She’s gone on to have a long and varied career as a multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, recording as a solo artist, playing in several bands, and collaborating with many other musicians.

She founded and was the editor for The Old Time Herald magazine, worked as a folklorist documenting many traditional musicians, as well as collaborating with several bands, and is currently working on a book of her photographs of traditional musicians.

In her interview, Alice talks about her mentors, becoming a musician, her path to making a living through music, diversity and gender issues in the industry and their impact on her career, inspirational young women playing today, advice for musicians who are starting out their professional careers.

Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Pathways and Roadblocks

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Laurie Lewis

Laurie Lewis, of San Francisco, California, has been at the forefront of the west-coast bluegrass music scene since the 1970s. A co-founder of the Good Ol’ Persons, she’s gone on to front her own bands, including the Grant Street String Band, and currently Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands.

Lewis was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association in 1992 and 1994, and was nominated for a Grammy in 1995 in her duet album with Tom Rozum, The Oak and the Laurel.

In her interview, Lewis talks about her mentors and inspirations, her shift to playing professionally, pathways and roadblocks in her career, inspiring young women playing today, women she’s worked with, her role in as a record producer, how the pandemic has affected her this past year, and advice for young musicians.

Amythyst Kiah
Amythyst Kiah

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Musical Beginnings

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Amythyst Kiah

Amythyst Kiah, of Johnson City, Tennessee, graduated from the Bluegrass, Old-time, and Country Music program at Eastern Tennessee State University, and has hit the ground running since then.

Finding inspiration in old time string band music, alternative rock, folk, country, and blues, Kiah brings her banjo and guitar playing, vocals, and songwriting skills to the stage as a solo artist and with her band, Her Chest of Glass. She was nominated for a Grammy in 2019 for her song Black Myself, which she recorded with the female supergroup Our Native Daughters.

In her interview, Kiah talks about her musical beginnings and introduction to roots music, female performers in different genres, her roots music mentors and influences, lessons from the pandemic, and about the Our Native Daughters project and what it meant to her.

Traci Thomas
Traci Thomas

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: How Things Have Changed

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Traci Thomas

Traci Thomas of Nashville, Tennessee, has been involved in artist publicity and management for several decades, and is a founding member of the American Music Association.

As a manager, Thomas helped Jason Isbell in his rise to one of the new century’s most significant artists, and she has guided the more recent commercial ascent of Birmingham, Alabama-based soul band, St. Paul and the Broken Bones.

She was honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame at the Museum’s Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum in 2017.

In her interview, Thomas talks about artist management and her career path to that role, being a woman in the business and taking on new roles, how things have changed, a young female artist she’s excited about, the Louise Scruggs award, teaching artist management, and advice for young women entering the field.

Ruth Ungar
Ruth Ungar

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Gender parity and diversity

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Ruth Ungar

Ruth Ungar was raised in a folk musical family and learned fiddle at an early age. Her father is fiddler and composer Jay Ungar (Ashoken Farewell) and her mom is Lyn Hardy, a singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Along with her husband Michael Merenda, she has recorded and performed original American music for over two decades, both with the band The Mammals and as the duo Mike & Ruthy. Ruth has also performed and recorded in the band Sometymes Why, an American Folk Noir band that includes Kristin Andreassen and Aoife O’Donovan.

Ruth and Mike, and their two children, make their home in the Hudson River Valley where they and friends host their own thriving community folk festival, The Hoot. The Hoot is held bi-annually at The Ashokan Center, an outdoor education, conference and retreat center in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, where Ruth is the Director of Arts and Education.

In her interview, Ungar talks about playing and performing, heading down a musical career path, musical partners, gender parity and diversity, the business of music, experiences as a woman in music, and paradigm shifts.

Kristin Scott Benson
Kristin Scott Benson

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Being a woman in the band

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Kristin Scott Benson

Kristin Scott Benson is a five-time International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year and recipient of the 2018 Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. Since 2008, she has been a member of Grammy-nominated and two-time IBMA Entertainers of the Year, The Grascals.

Kristin is one of the nation’s top bluegrass banjo players, exhibiting impeccable taste, timing, and tone. With an attentive ear to back-up, she is known and respected as a true team player among her peers. Many consider her to be one of the first females to successfully be a side-musician in a top-tiered bluegrass band.

Kristin’s latest solo album, entitled “Stringworks,” was released in July of 2016. It debuted in the top-ten on Billboard’s Bluegrass album chart and the self-penned opening track, ‘Great Waterton,’ was nominated for IBMA’s Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year. Kristin plays a 1930 Gibson TB-3 banjo.

In her interview, Benson talks about her early days, influences and mentors, her role as sideman in a band, being a woman in the band, traveling with the Grascals, what’s next in her career, living her lifelong passion, and gives advice to young musicians.

Haley Miller Coots
Haley Miller Coots

Interview Excerpt

Excerpt selection: Women in the field

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Haley Miller Coots

Haley Miller Coots is a professional audio engineer who works for SE Systems, a sound and event production company that has offices in Winston-Salem, NC and Charlotte, NC. SE Systems provides sound, staging, lighting and production services for major festivals, concert series, venues, and touring performers and bands. Some of their more well known clients include Merlefest, IBMA Wide World of Bluegrass, and The Tangier Center in Greensboro, NC.

Coots has toured as audio engineer for Alison Krauss and Union Station, run sound at both Merlefest and IBMA among other festivals, and worked with both the Winston-Salem and North Carolina Symphonies on the Pop Series concerts, particularly the bluegrass and Americana oriented collaborations. Haley is married and has two young daughters.

In her interview, Coots talks about getting started, women in the field, family life, work-life balance, mentors, and gives advice for people entering the field.

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