Thomm Jutz & Time Stafford
Talk About Their New Album Wall Dogs, and Give Us A Master’s Class in Songwriting
For 30 years now, Tim Stafford has been a member of the world-class bluegrass band Blue Highway. Tim has also become one of the best songwriters in the business, winning three International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Songwriter Of The Year awards in 2014, 2017, and 2023.
Along the way, Stafford met Thomm Jutz, and the duo quickly became songwriting friends. Jutz’s journey into the world of country and bluegrass music is an interesting international story. He grew up in Germany and knew from an early age that he wanted to be a part of the roots music scene in America. After emigrating to the U.S., he eventually enrolled in the Appalachian Studies program at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. That led to the prerequisite migration to Nashville where he landed jobs as a touring guitarist, performing with musicians such as Nanci Griffith, Mary Gauthier, David Olney, and Kim Richey.
Throughout Jutz’s musical trek, his fascination with the process of composing new songs has led him in many wonderful directions. He has co-written music with many amazing talents, including a stand-out album released with Tammy Rogers of The SteelDrivers, and newer songs co-written with Billy Strings and many other impressive artists. At the same time, he has released multiple solo projects, including his acclaimed To Live In Two Worlds Volume 1 and Volume 2 albums. Jutz’s impressive body of work led to him winning his own IBMA Songwriter of the Year Award in 2021.
Fortunately for music lovers everywhere, Stafford and Jutz have combined their award-winning songwriting skills to record three albums together. The projects include the Lost Voices and the just released Wall Dogs.
In January of 2025, just four months after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia, Stafford and Jutz performed in the Jones House Cultural Center located on King Street in downtown Boone, North Carolina. One of the beacons of the arts in the small but famous mountain city, named after Daniel Boone, the Jones House features an indoor concert facility that is basically an intimate 40-seat listening room. The venue also hosts the all-important Junior Appalachian Musicians music instruction program, being one of the first of over 60 similar hubs that now teach over 1,000 students how to play bluegrass and old-time music in six states.
As Stafford and Jutz began their acoustic song pull, they were literally 60 yards from the famed statue of Doc Watson that sits on the corner of King Street and Depot Street. The presence of Watson’s brass bench statue nearby is relevant for several reasons. First of all, Watson, wife Rosa Lee, and their kids Nancy and Merle lived in next door Deep Gap near the Blue Ridge Parkway with Boone being their closest downtown area. Then, in September of 2024, the photo of Watson’s sculpture surrounded by the Hurricane Helene floodwaters was dramatic and shared around the world. Thirdly, the statue also triggers a memory by Jutz of a time decades ago when Doc Watson’s music entered his life and changed it forever while growing up in his native Germany.
“One of the most influential records that I ever bought in my life was the Doc and Merle Watson record called Down South,” said Jutz. “I was a kid at that point in Germany and I had no idea who Doc Watson was, and yet I bought that album because the cover of it spoke to me. The cover has Doc and Merle sitting on the front porch of an old country store and they were both playing guitars while two kids were watching them. I was so moved by that image that I bought that record without knowing what kind of music I was going to hear. When I went home and listened to that music, of course, it was like the heavens opened up and I heard acoustic guitar playing that I had never heard before.”
Hearing that album, sight unseen, led to great things for Jutz in the long run. “From that moment on, I studied Doc and Merle’s guitar playing, and from there, I listened to Tony Rice and Norman Blake and all of those amazing artists,” said Jutz. “But, while growing up in Germany, that was music that we were not familiar with, yet through the power of that album’s cover image, I got into Doc and his songs. To this day, he is still one of my favorite guitar players and favorite singers. Doc was also one of my favorite personalities in music as a person who overcame so much adversity (while being visually impaired), and yet, by all accounts, he was such a kind man as well, all while revolutionizing the acoustic guitar. He stayed humble. I read his biography and Billy Strings sent me a bunch of Doc Watson-related things that he had collected over the years, including videos and things like that. Billy is so much into Doc and his music, and he knows that I am as well, so it is one of the things that connects us.”
Tim Stafford got to know Doc Watson while coming up through the bluegrass ranks and he treasures the time he spent with the legend. “Doc was always so welcoming and so friendly,” said Stafford. “We did a concert at East Tennessee State University back when I was working with Dr. Richard Blaustein at the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services and it was a show that we did with Clint Howard, who had played with Doc at one point. So, for this concert, Doc came along and we also went over to Doc’s house in Deep Gap and sat and talked for a while. We didn’t play any music during that visit, even though I wish we had done so, looking back. The fact that he electrically wired his own home blew my mind, and it was a big house. Once or twice, I did get to play with him at a festival workshop type of event, I think, but I can’t remember where it took place. Later on, Doc and I got to know each other a little better and he was such an amazing guy.”
After Stafford joined Blue Highway, the band shared the bill with Watson one evening on the West Virginia-based radio show Mountain Stage. “We were down in the dressing rooms and Doc was there and Tony Rice was there as well,” said Stafford. “Doc heard me playing the song ‘Whistlin’ Rufus,’ because I wanted to learn that fiddle tune after I heard it. At that time, I did not know that Doc had recorded it, and I was playing it in a different key than what Doc played it in. So, all of a sudden, I hear this voice from another dressing room and it is Doc saying, ‘Jack, I believe that tune is played in G.’ I was playing it out of the D position. He apparently thought I was his guitarist Jack Lawrence. I just said, ‘Yeah, this tune probably would fit in that key.’ Doc just laughed, realizing what happened.”
Now, as this new century has reached the one-quarter-of-the-way mark in 2025, many of those amazing musicians that Stafford befriended have left this world. “For some reason, even though Doc and Tony Rice and all of those guys were my heroes, I never really got nervous about being around them,” said Stafford. “Looking back now, as the years have passed, Doc and Tony and a bunch of them are gone now, and these days I often think about the moments I spent with them. I wrote that book about Tony (Still Inside – The Tony Rice Story, co-written with Carolina Wright), so I got to be friends with him, and I also got to know other great musicians like George Shuffler, Byron Berline and Jack Cooke, and people like that, who were all legends and really cool cats. Those guys were all great to me.”
Jutz’s excursions into songwriting have also led him to brushes with historical figures, with one song collaboration, in particular, leaving him with a bit of survivor’s guilt.
As I interviewed Stafford and Jutz separately on the same day, they both shared cool insights into the art of songwriting. “I still write every day, pretty much, just as most people do in Nashville that are professional songwriters,” said Jutz. “What has changed in recent years is that people do not walk up and down Music Row with satchels full of CDs, or cassettes anymore. Many ideas or songs are sent around by email or using tools like Dropbox. Other than that, in many ways, it is still the same process as people walk into a building at 10 a.m. to write or work on a song and then do it again at 2 o’clock. I prefer to co-write in person with someone, but at the same time, Tim and I write together using Zoom a lot because we live four hours from each other. We have gotten used to doing it that way so the digital process has helped to make good things happen.”
As for some of the habits that have made Jutz a successful songwriter, he has collected hundreds of song titles, song ideas, and even turns of a phrase that he has come up with as he goes about his daily life. When it comes to co-writing with someone new, he will study the other person’s patterns and likes and dislikes so they can reach common ground quickly.
Some songwriters follow the adage of ‘write what you know,’ but Jutz also follows the concept of watching humans live out their more memorable experiences and then try to capture those ideas in a musical way that people can relate to. Other times, it is about learning and being inspired by true historic events, and imagining how people reacted to those situations.
“I can write songs about Civil War soldiers, but when I do, I like to do some homework first and figure out where that soldier was born how, old he was, what battle he fought in, how the battle ended, who was the general and more,” said Jutz. “I’ve never been in a coal mine, but I can write a song about coal mining if I do the research. Ideas are everywhere. I read a lot and I find all kinds of stuff and that is where most of my ideas come from. I believe that the more you read, the more you will write. Anything can be an inspiration, so I read all of the time.”
While Jutz has co-written songs with many artists at this point, there is something special about working with Stafford. “I’ve always been a big fan of Tim’s writing and playing, and we are both really interested in history,” said Jutz. “There is a lot of common ground between us when it comes to what we want to write about, like Southern history and railroads, and all that comes from our similar interests when it comes to literature.”
That brings us to perhaps Jutz and Stafford’s most compelling composition called “Mona Lisa of the Deep” found on their latest album Wall Dogs. The phrase ‘Mona Lisa of the Deep’ is based on a true person in history who has no identity or life story, yet their tale is utterly fascinating. Please let me explain. In 1857, a ship called the S.S. Central America was hauling a load of gold and silver from California to New York when it sunk during a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina, aka the Graveyard Of The Atlantic. In 2014, teams of scientists and recovery professionals explored the remains of the vessel, which was located in over 7,000-feet of water, and to their amazement, over 100 photos were found amongst the ruins and the gold and silver.
“Thomm and I usually start out with a few ideas for a possible new song, but sometimes we just start with a song title, and that was the case with the song ‘Mona Lisa of the Deep,’” said Stafford. “It is the name of a picture that they found on a gold ship that got caught in a hurricane off of the coast of North Carolina in the 1850s and all of the 400-plus people on the ship were lost and the treasure was lost as well. It was headed to New York City at the time. Over the years, of course, folks have been looking for the treasure, but it is in a pretty deep part of the Atlantic Ocean. About ten years ago, the divers found a perfectly preserved daguerreotype of this young woman in the wreckage, and they quickly gave her the name of ‘Mona Lisa of the Deep.’”
When you look at the photograph, it is a fascinating object. How an old daguerreotype photograph survived in 7,000 feet of ocean water for 157 years is incredible in and of itself. But, the look of the woman in the picture, who is obviously beautiful yet is also wearing very cool and intriguing clothing, also sparked the imagination of all who have seen it. The main thought-provoking aspect of the image is that she has not been identified and her life’s journey is lost to history.
“What we did with this song is we reconstructed a story based on what could have happened,” said Stafford. “I saw her photo online somewhere and I thought it would make for a great song. Our lyrics are not the true story, because we don’t know who she is, yet it is still based on a real person. You see the photograph and you automatically think, ‘Well, what happened here, and who was she?’ It is like when you see the real Mona Lisa painting by da Vinci and you think to yourself, ‘Who actually was this person?’ My mind can’t help but to wonder about those things.”
When you do become an established songwriter and you live in a place like Nashville, sometimes you get to meet and work with legends. That was the case for Jutz, yet when a certain memorable collaboration took place, he never thought that a few, short years later it would trigger thoughts of survivor’s guilt in him. At his show with Stafford at the Jones House in Boone on that cold winter’s night not long ago, Jutz told his historic yet forlorn tale. “I have to sing this next song right here as I wrote it with a good friend of mine, Peter Cooper, and another good friend of mine named Mac Wiseman,” said Jutz, about the long-time music writer for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville in Cooper, and the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Famer Mac Wiseman. “Peter and I made a couple of records together with Mac including Songs From My Mother’s Hand, which was a collection of songs that Mac’s mother wrote down when he was a child. Mac grew up in Crimora, Virginia, during the Great Depression and he had polio and was laid up for a whole summer. He remembered that his mother would sit by the radio and she would write out the lyrics of the songs on the radio for him and collected them.”
Wiseman grew up to not only be a great musician, he was also known as a storyteller and Jutz and Cooper soaked up those tales when they spent time with him. Because Wiseman was too old and feeble to repeatedly get in and out of the recording studio, the trio decided to bring in a host of guest vocalists to sing on the album they were making together. One guest vocalist who gladly accepted the offer was the great John Prine.
“Mac was good friends with John Prine, and I think it had something to do with the fact that they both left their Christmas tree up the whole year round,” continued Jutz, from the stage. “John picked this song to sing on the record, which was the title of the album called I Sang The Song.’ Then, Mac passed away eight years ago, and John Prine passed away in the beginning of April in 2020. John’s lifelong dream was to play a show in Paris and he did that, and then he came home and because he had really bad lung issues, he died of COVID. Then Peter, who was my best friend in life other than my wife, he passed away just two years ago in December. Now, it is a little strange to be the last one of the four people who had something to do with this song. So, when Peter passed away, I made a vow to myself that at every show for the rest of my life from here on out, I would sing this song to honor Mac and John, and mostly for my brother Peter Cooper, so this is for him.”
For Stafford, his life as a songwriter also led him to collaborate with folks he grew to love as well. Before he began this wonderful musical alliance with Jutz, Stafford wrote a lot of songs with his friend, the late Steve Gulley. Steve Gulley was a talented singer, guitarist, and songwriter who passed away in August of 2020 from pancreatic cancer just 23 days after he was diagnosed. Early on, as the son of a bluegrass musician, Gulley made his bones by performing at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance in Kentucky. As he grew into adulthood, he did memorable stints with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Mountain Heart, and Grasstowne before forming his own band, Steve Gulley & New Pinnacle.
Guley performed many times on the Grand Ole Opry and his original song “Through the Window of a Train,” co-written with Tim Stafford and recorded by Blue Highway, won the IBMA Song of the Year Award in 2008.
Stafford recorded two albums with Gulley, including Dogwood Winter and Still Here. “Steve and I also wrote a song together for the God Didn’t Choose Sides – Civil War True Stories About Real People album that he produced,” said Stafford. “He put a lot of time into that project. Steve was just one of a kind, man, and he was just a super guy. Steve and I wrote probably as many songs as Thomm and I have written, although we did it before the advent of Zoom, so I always went to Steve’s house to write.
“Usually, with Steve, I was the one with the guitar and once we picked a topic and we would begin to write a song, he would go and stand by the window and look through the glass,” continued Stafford. “When he did that, I knew he was getting into it. He would look out the window and he’d be talking the whole time, trying to come up with ideas, and I’d be writing them down as fast as I could. And sometimes, he would come up with complete lines that would end up in the song.”
When it came to songwriting, Gulley had some of the same beliefs about the craft as Prine. “Steve’s big deal, when it came to songwriting, was all about the characters in the song,” said Stafford. “Like John Prine always said, ‘If you figure out your characters well enough in advance, they will tell you what the song is going to be about.’ I think Prine was right about that. There would be times when you would hear Steve say something like, ‘What would this guy do?’ or ‘This cat would do this, but he wouldn’t say that.’ I’ve always remembered that in the years since then, even though it is hard to believe that he is not here with us. It is still not real to me that he is gone.”
The good news is that as this article comes out in Bluegrass Unlimited, yet another Stafford/Gulley composition has seen the light of day all of these years later. This time, it is the reigning 2024 IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year Jaelee Roberts of Sister Sadie who has just released a solo single called “Heavy As A Stone In Her Heart” that was written by Tim Stafford and the late Steve Gulley.
“The first time I heard the demo of ‘Heavy As A Stone in Her Heart,’ I was absolutely floored by the lyrics, melody, and raw emotion and I knew, without a doubt, that I had to record it,” said Roberts. “Slow, sad songs that tell a story always speak to me the most, and this one absolutely stole my heart and broke it, too. This song is extra special to me because it was written by two of my favorite songwriters and singers who are also my mentors Tim Stafford and Steve Gulley. I have looked up to Tim and Steve my entire life and I feel so grateful that this song made its way to me. I so wish that Steve was still here with us, but I know he’s listening from Heaven and this song is dedicated to him and his musical legacy.”
For more information, and to get the new album Wall Dogs, please go to thommjutz.com and timstaffordguitar.com.
