Bluegrass Jam Along

My guest on Bluegrass Jam Along this week is Happy Traum.

Happy founded Homespun with his wife, Jane, in 1967. In the 55 years that followed, Homespun has helped hundreds of thousands of people learn to play music and has worked with some of the all-time bluegrass greats, including Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Bill Monroe, John Hartford, Sam Bush and many, many more.

Happy share the story of how Homespun was born, as well as memories of working with some of those iconic musicians, many of whom became friends along the way.

Happy also gave listeners to Bluegrass Jam Along an exclusive discount for anything from the (huge!) Homespun catalogue. Just enter the code JAMALONG at checkout and you'll get 20% off. You've got till July 8th 2022 to take advantage so hurry!

Here are some of my favourites, in case you need some ideas!

The Tony Rice Guitar Method

Norman Blake's Guitar Techniques

The Sam Bush Mandolin Method


Stuff we chat about in the episode

Homespun's website

Happy's website

Happy's signature guitar from Santa Cruz

Richard Thompson's Frets and Refrains camp

Adam Traum's website

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

Yesterday was June 8th 2022 and would have been Tony Rice's birthday.  As a tribute to Tony I've put together a compilation of some of the conversations I've had  for this podcast where the guests mentioned Tony.

I wanted to wait till today to release it as yesterday, Tony's actual birthday, I was speaking to Happy Traum of Homespun, who was a good friend of Tony's and worked closely with him. I wanted to make sure we included something from Happy.

So here, a day late but hopefully worth the wait, is Bluegrass Jam Along's birthday tribute to Tony Rice.

If you want to hear the full interviews these came from, here they are:

Chris Eldridge interview

Mike Marshall interview

Marcel Ardans interview

Happy picking (and happy birthday Tony!)
Matt

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This  week we're jamming along to the classic tune Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further Into the Fire. This is a performance track, rather than a backing track. It's me playing both tune and backup so you've got a reference to listen to if you're new to the tune, or just want to be able to listen a few times to the whole thing.

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done and jam along!

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This week we're jamming along to Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further Into the Fire and I've got  three brand new backing track episodes for you. This is the jam along track where I play backup, followed by the melody then we keep swapping.  It's four times through in the key of G at 85 bpm.

• backing track starts at 00:29

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done.

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  just head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This week we're jamming along to Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further Into the Fire and I've got  three brand new backing track episodes for you. This is the you play lead track where I play backup so you can work on the tune.  It's four times through in the key of G at 85 bpm.

• backing track starts at 00:30

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done.

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  just head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This week we're jamming along to Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further Into the Fire and I've got  three brand new backing track episodes for you. This is the you play rhythm track where I play the melody so you can work on backup.  It's four times through in the key of G at 85 bpm.

• backing track starts at 00:36

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done.

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  just head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

Hi.

We haven't had a Food For Thought episode for a while, but I've had something in my head all week based on a few Facebook posts I saw. The general theme was whether something can be called bluegrass if it has a  non-traditionally bluegrass instrument in it (e.g. pedal steel or accordion).

In the episode I play a clip of my interview with Tristan Scroggins where he discusses genre and how he sees it. Here's the full Tristan Scroggins interview if you want to hear it all (or have a listen again - which I'd thoroughly recommend - I did just that this week!).

Have a listen, then head over to Bluegrass Jamalong's Instagram or Facebook and tell us what you think!

Tristan Scroggins interview - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tristan-scroggins-interview/id1556697198

Happy picking.
Matt

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

I've just released the 200th episode of Bluegrass Jam Along! I can't believe it's come around after just 14 months!

Thanks to all of you, whether you've been listening a few days or since the start.

I'd really love it if you head to wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review. It would also be great if you could share this podcast with anyone, and everyone, you think might be interested. Helping spread the word helps me keep the podcast going, and also means I can carry on getting great guests on for you!

Thanks again and happy picking.
Matt

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This  week we're jamming along to the classic tune Cattle in the Cane. This is a performance track, rather than a backing track. It's me playing both tune and backup so you've got a reference to listen to if you're new to the tune, or just want to be able to listen a few times to the whole thing.

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done and jam along!

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts

This week we're jamming along to Cattle in the Cane and I've got  three brand new backing track episodes for you. This is the jam along track where I play backup, followed by the melody then we keep swapping.  It's four times through in the key of A at 75 bpm.

• backing track starts at 00:47

Don't forget to check out the other three episodes when you're done.

If you want a chord chart (or just want to find out more or get in touch),  just head to bluegrassjamalong.com

Support the show

===

Thanks to Bryan Sutton for his wonderful theme tune to Bluegrass Jam Along (and to Justin Moses for playing the fiddle!)

Bluegrass Jam Along is proud to be sponsored by Collings Guitars and Mandolins and Token premium guitar picks

- Sign up to get updates on new episodes

- Free fiddle tune chord sheets

- Here's a list of all the Bluegrass Jam Along interviews

- Follow Bluegrass Jam Along for regular updates:

• Instagram
• Facebook

- Review us on Apple Podcasts