Grammy-nominated Alice Gerrard is still in demand, but the bluegrass pioneer is ready for a break
It seems no matter how hard Alice Gerrard tries, she can’t seem to slow down.
Gerrard, a Grammy-nominated bluegrass Hall of Fame musician, has a schedule with a dizzying blur of travel — teaching, performing, offering workshops and celebrating more than 50 years as a pioneer of women in bluegrass.
Valued for her musical talents and knowledge of Southern culture, Gerrard is in high demand, earning frequent flyer miles to spots as distant as the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Wash., Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Ark., and Berkeley Old Time Music Convention in Berkeley, Calif.
While Gerrard, a spry 84 years old, sings and plays with the authority of a woman half her age, she says she is ready to slow down. There are other projects to pursue, and the travel does take a toll.
“I feel like I just want to stay home with my dog,” said Gerrard in a phone interview from her Durham home, before she embarked on a four-day trip to Alabama for a workshop. “I’m way behind in a lot of stuff and all I want to do is veg out. I’m so tired. So, I’m going to learn to say ‘No.’”
On Friday, Oct. 26, Gerrard will perform closer to home at Carrboro’s ArtsCenter with the Piedmont Melody Makers, an acoustic quartet featuring Chapel Hill’s Jim Watson along with Cliff Hale and Chris Brashear. The band will showcase songs from its “Wonderful World Outside” album, along with original and traditional tunes from the Southern folk canon.
Gerrard’s career began in the early 1960s, when she teamed with Hazel Dickens, a West Virginia coal country émigré to Baltimore. Gerrard and Dickens, known as Alice & Hazel (or Hazel & Alice), performed as a duo at a time when few women played bluegrass. Original songs, such as “Custom Made Woman Blues” and “Don’t Put Her Down You Helped Put Her There,” brought women into bluegrass music’s center stage.
The four albums they recorded between 1965 and 1975, plus performances at Carnegie Hall, Newport and other festivals and concert stages, provided both model and inspiration for other women drawn to the high lonesome sound of bluegrass. For the first time, women were writing and singing bluegrass songs that spoke directly to and for other women.
Emmylou Harris, the Judds, and even Bob Dylan have acknowledged Hazel and Alice as sources of inspiration and repertoire. Dickens died in 2011, but Gerrard carries the legacy of their pioneering act.
In the 1980s, Gerrard moved to Galax, Va., where she documented musicians, including the legendary Tommy Jarrell and Luther Davis, in the cultural context that birthed and nurtured the music she loves. In 1987, she founded and edited “The Old-Time Herald” magazine before stepping down to pursue songwriting, performing and recording full-time in 2003.
Her recent recordings include the 2017 CD, “Tear Down the Fences,” a duet album with Kay Justice. Last month, she released “Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969,” previously unreleased recordings with Dickens.
In recognition of her contributions, the International Bluegrass Music Association honored Gerrard with its Distinguished Achievement Award. And last year, Alice & Hazel were inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame.
Gerrard spoke to The News & Observer about her career, her music and plans for the future.
Q: Your work as a pioneering artist has been recognized by your peers with numerous awards, including a Grammy nomination for your 2015 solo album, “Follow the Music.” How do feel at this point in your career to be enveloped within this atmosphere of praise and gratitude?
A: I guess you could call it a bit of a mixed bag. I’m very appreciative, and I recognize the honors. I do to some extent consider myself a reluctant honoree. I’m never completely comfortable with that role. But I do appreciate it, and I’m very honored that people have received Hazel and my work like this.
Q: It seems that your newfound celebrity has rendered you more in demand for concerts, workshops and teaching gigs.
A: I feel very, very fortunate to be in reasonably good health and able to do these things. The other side of it is – I’m getting old! (laughs). I was in DC for the concert (celebrating the “DC Tapes” release), and three days later I had to go the West Coast. Three days after that, I went to Winston-Salem. Thursday morning I leave for Alabama.
Q: You mentioned “Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969.” This is an album of practice tapes, recorded as you and Hazel were developing the act that would eventually be heralded as a bluegrass legend. How did the album come about?
A: I was cleaning out my closet and found a box of 7-inch reel-to-reel acetate tapes. A couple of them said, “Alice and Hazel Practice.” I started playing them. There was a lot of stuff on there that we never recorded but were seeing about maybe recording them.
Q: One can hear you and Hazel working on songs that you might record or play in concert. It’s a diverse collection, from the Everly Brothers to Carter Family, Bill Monroe and Merle Haggard. It really is an intimate glimpse of a career in process, a career that would eventually find you and Hazel enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
A: It’s a long time ago, and I don’t remember exactly what was going on. But I do know we were starting to think about going on tour with Anne Romaine’s Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project. We wanted to have material that just the two of us could do. So we had to work up some stuff and use whatever we had to make it interesting. I could do a guitar break or autoharp or banjo break, and Hazel could play guitar.
Q: You’ve never been one to sit around and watch the grass grow. So besides reducing your travel and musical obligations, what does the future hold for Alice Gerrard?
A: Slowing down is my main goal. I taught a semester at (Duke University’s) Center for Documentary Studies. I took a lot of photographs back in the day, mostly of musicians on tours. After hours, I would digitize my 33 mm negatives. Somebody suggested I should do a book, so I started thinking about it. I’m trying to get back on that track. But I have to stay home to do that. I get back from a trip like the marathon this month and it takes me a few days to (recover). You have to put your energy where you can because there’s less of it to go around.
Details
Who: Alice Gerrard and the Piedmont Melody Makers
When: 8 p.m. Oct. 26
Where: The ArtsCenter, 300-G E. Main St., Carrboro
Tickets: $15
Info: 919-929-2787 or artscenterlive.org
This story was originally published October 21, 2018 at 12:19 AM.