Bluegrass Power Couple
The award-winning banjo picker Kristin Scott Benson and her husband, mandolin great Wayne Benson, are what you might call a bluegrass power couple. After all, Kristin is a 5-time IBMA Banjo Player of the Year and a recipient of the prestigious Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass as well as a long-time member of The Grascals. Wayne is considered one of the best at his instrument in the bluegrass world, so much so that Gibson decided to build a Wayne Benson Signature Model mandolin in his honor. His stellar musicianship is obvious if you have seen him play over the last 25 years with Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out. Beginners and players on the rise can also learn a great deal from his instructional YouTube channel called Wayne’s World of Mandolin.
Finally, this dynamic duo has recorded a new album together called Pick Your Poison under the band name Benson.
What works for this amazingly talented couple is respect for one another, both when it comes to their marriage and their careers. On the one hand, it is surprising that they have not recorded an album together before now, yet it makes sense when you hear the stories of their musical journeys separately and together. In the following interviews, which were done separately for less congestion and more clarity, you realize that Kristin Scott Benson and Wayne Benson are a team that uses a commonsense approach to the volatile music world and to life itself.
During normal times, when Kristin and Wayne are touring separately and working hard to make a living, a project like this may not have been feasible, and that has been true for 20 years. But there is more to their dynamic than just time. “Neither one of us has had the desire to be in the same band together, and a part of that is about just being practical,” said Kristin. “As we are raising our son, there are a lot of days when one of us is gone and the other one is home. If we were in the same band and they went on a long trip, that creates a problem because you are both gone. But, I also think we both have a strong sense of individuality. Not in an unhealthy way, but we have always been fine being apart. That is not to say we don’t miss one another at times, it’s just that we never needed to be together all of the time. The opportunity to be in the same band has never arisen, and we certainly have never had the desire to create it.”
There are some couples in the music business who can handle being with each other 24/7, then again, many a great band has experienced turmoil over such matters and even broken up because of it. Wayne views their connection as a couple in a similarly common-sense way. “As for Kristin and myself, neither one of us are lead singers,” said Wayne Benson. “We both can do some harmony singing. But if we were in the same group, say we were in a band with a lead singer like Russell Moore and something happened to Russell’s voice; we’d both be unemployed. Or the same would be true if we both played with The Grascals. If something happened and that band broke up, we’d both be out of work. So, we’ve always kind of looked at it as two separate things because we are side musicians, and that is what we do for a living.”
Kristin’s father was always supportive of her budding musicianship, yet at the same time he was a hands-on guy who worked hard to make a living and he was leery at best at the idea of his daughter going into the crazy music business. “He’s my dad so he had an influence on everything,” said Kristin. “I couldn’t have learned to play the banjo without parents who supported it. I was pretty much spoon-fed bluegrass music from the time I was born. We always had it in the house. I tried to learn how to play the banjo before I was a teenager. But then, our house burned down and I hadn’t had my banjo for very long when the fire happened in the middle of the night. The banjo was simply not a high priority as far as things to replace. So, it was a while before I got another banjo and the next one was a full scale length.”
After high school, Kristin ended up at Belmont University. “Looking back, you become more specialized the older you get,” said Kristin. “At first, I liked music, but I also liked a lot of other things, especially sports. But when I really started playing the banjo at 13, I got obsessed with it, even though I still did all of the other common things that kids do in high school. I was in marching band and I played the trombone and other things. But the more that my love for the banjo grew, the more that everything else fell by the wayside. So, I went to college solely to move to Nashville and that is why I chose Belmont University. Without fully realizing it at the time, I was trying to make real-life decisions based on being able to play, although even now, I still have not admitted to myself that being a professional musician is the goal.”
A lot of the misapprehension of the music business came from her parent’s experiences when it came to supporting a family in the real world. “I was raised in a very hard-working family and playing music for a living, even though my Dad just loved music and did everything he could to enable it; there was the sentiment that once you grew up, you got a job,” Kristin said. “Music was something that you did on the side. I was getting some pressure after college to do the right thing and go to work, yet I found myself over and over again not having the heart to give up on it. My most immediate option other than music at the time was going to graduate school at Belmont and getting a master’s degree in accounting.”
As most if not all young adults must face, Kristin was at the crossroads all of a sudden with a direction to choose. “Wayne and I had been dating at that time for a couple of years and he was the one who kind of crystallized it,” said Kristin. “The offer to get a small salary from the University while getting my masters was a great opportunity, but he said, ‘Do you want to be an accountant?’ I said, ‘No. Not really.’ He said, ‘Then all you are doing, really, is postponing the commitment that you do want to play. You’re just buying more time. You are wanting to do the so-called responsible thing, yet you are really just postponing the inevitable decision of ‘This is what I want to do, this is where my heart is.’”
As for Wayne’s journey, he found himself being a professional musician at an early age with great opportunities appearing one after another as he went from band to band. Still, when he courted Kristin and eventually asked for her hand in marriage, her Dad did not share his apprehension of the music business in a forceful way. “He never said anything to me about that at all,” Wayne said. “I think a lot of that came from Kristin going to Belmont and doing so well there. Kristin could have gone right into a career other than bluegrass and been successful, but I never really talked to Fred about that. To me, if you find something in life that means something to you, then there is the old saying that if you do something you love, you’ll never work another day in your life. If we try to carve that attitude into our belief system, there is a lot of truth in it. I loved music from the time I was a kid and enjoyed getting together with family members to play, usually around the holidays when people had more time off from work. My Dad and his brothers and my Mom’s brothers all played bluegrass. Then, as I grew into being a teenager and gained more freedom after I had a driver’s license, I met other players and other guys my age who were really into bluegrass and many of them had ambitions of doing this for a living. Clay Jones, especially, he and I were really good buddies when we were younger and he was the first of my friends to talk about doing this professionally and that may have planted the seed in me.”
By 19, Wayne Benson rekindled his friendship with Scott Vestal and the opportunity to join the new group Livewire fell into his lap. That group, with Benson and Vestal along with Robert Hale and Ernie Sykes, recording one album for Rounder Records in 1990. From that point on, Benson was on his way in the music business and has never looked back.
Decades later, this amazingly talented husband and wife team have made an impressive mark in the bluegrass world. Even so, despite it sounding counter-intuitive, they had yet to record an album together. But, as with a lot of things that have happened over the last couple of years, it was the arrival of the pandemic that opened up the window for this new Pick Your Poison album by Benson to be made.
“Had it not been for the whole covid-19 pandemic, I’m not sure it would have happened as that is what really led to us doing this recording,” Wayne said. “All of the work went away for all of the bands once the virus hit and it created time for us at home. So, we went up and had a meeting with Mickey Gamble at the Mountain Home record label offices and we talked. It would have been really hard for us to schedule that meeting and go up there together the way our lives work when both of our bands are really busy. Therefore, the covid-19 lockdown was what gave us enough time to even think about doing something like this together. As for Mickey, he totally trusted us. Kristin had already recorded two solo albums with his label, so Mickey knew her taste in music.”
To add to that confidence, Wayne has played on a lot of studio sessions for Mountain Home, with his fine work on Tray Wellington’s new album Black Banjo being a perfect example of his work. “Wayne and I had a lot of material in mind for this album. For one thing, Wayne writes instrumentals all of the time, like crazy,” said Kristin. “So, we had plenty of instrumentals to choose from. As for the vocal songs, we listened to a lot of demos and some of the songs came from that. But, as a musician, there is this eternal stockpile of songs that sit there in your mind and if you think it may work in a bluegrass context, you can consider using it. I’ve always got a lot of ideas when it comes to vocal material. Then, the really fun part is getting to arrange those songs and choose the vocalists to sing them. Meanwhile, Wayne and I had to consider each other’s musical opinion and that was kind of new for us.”
“Kristin had the idea for the Beatles song that Jamie Johnson sings called ‘I’ll Follow The Sun’ with a bluegrass arrangement,” adds Wayne. “Jamie’s voice was perfect for that song. It wasn’t an issue at all with Kristin and me to agree on the songs that we were going to record. The process of actually putting our heads together here at the house and trying to brainstorm on what we might want to do and who we might want to bring in to play was so much easier because our bands were not busy with road gigs.”
This is a time in music history, of course, when albums are dropped by slowly releasing one single at a time. The first three cuts released by Benson from the Pick Your Poison album were the instrumental “Conway,” the gospel cut “Oh Me of Little Faith” and “What Kind Of Fool Are You?”
The latter cut was written by Becky Buller and Tony Rackley and features Grayson Lane and Mickey Harris on vocals and instrumental prowess by the Bensons along with Cody Kilby, Jim VanCleve, and Paul Watson on bass. “Conway” is a classic Wayne Benson instrumental giving Kristin and Wayne the opportunity to throwdown with Watson, Kilby and VanCleve.
“Oh Me of Little Faith” is a special song for the Benson’s as they got to work with a wonderful vocalist from their church named Heath Williams. “For me, ‘Oh Me Of Little Faith’ is probably my favorite song on the album,” said Kristin. “While we keep releasing singles from the album that we love, this gospel song is still my favorite because of the message and it is exactly the kind of song I like to play the banjo on. We used a vocalist on this one who is from our local church, a worship pastor named Heath Williams, and he is a phenomenal singer. I cannot overstate how impressed we are with Heath and how talented he is. He delivered it with just enough uniqueness to be ear-catching, in my opinion. He is not used to singing bluegrass, yet we know his musicianship very well and he could totally sing bluegrass if he wanted to. He is a pro and he writes music and plays music and is a fully-fledged artist that has been called to the ministry, so there certainly was no intimidation involved with him when it came to recording the song. We felt like it was a perfect pairing for the song, and it was the right vocal delivery for the way we wanted to play it, arrange it and present it. But, what really makes me love the song is the message.”
Wayne agrees. “My favorite cut on this album is also ‘Oh Me Of Little Faith,’ There is a great message in that song. If we ever get another opportunity to do a project together, I want it to be an all-gospel record.” As always, you can see and hear Kristin with The Grascals and Wayne is still making wonderful music with Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out. Wayne is an active endorser of mandolins made by luthier Jonathan McClanahan and Kristin has recently become the latest endorser of Deering Banjos.
“Looking back at this new album, which was started over a year ago, I’m really happy with what we have done,” said Wayne. “It’s different than the music found in either band that we are in, and it’s different than anything either of us have done alone. So, it is its own thing and the new ways that people listen to music now works for a project like this.”
The Bensons are well-aware of the modern trends we are currently experiencing in music, and they are prepared to adapt to them. “The way people consume music these days is so different,” Kristin said. “For decades,
the major distribution option for bluegrass was selling physical copies at shows. That model, for better or worse, has been shredded. There are pros and cons to the technology we have today. For instance, we have much greater accessibility to the masses as we are one click away. One of the downsides to it, however, is that people just don’t buy albums anymore. CD sales at shows have decreased to the point of being nearly non-existent. That actually took pressure off of us because we didn’t feel obligated to play live to support this Pick Your Poison album, which would be really hard to do with us being in different bands. Satellite radio, streaming, along with online and traditional radio outlets account for the overwhelming majority of music listening now, so we finally felt like the time was right to present this new music that we have finally made together.”
For more information go to
mountainhomemusiccompany.com.
