Laurie Lewis—Shining Star of Bluegrass Music’s New Golden Era

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine

March 1997, Volume 31, Number 9

Bluegrass music is enjoying a new golden era. The artists riding the crest of today’s wave are creating and inventing their own music just as the original giants of the music did. One of the shining stars of modern bluegrass and acoustic music is multi-talented Laurie Lewis. As an award winning bandleader, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Laurie is blazing her own original path, but with a respect and understanding of tradition that insures her creations are real and not tied to current fads. Her repertoire includes old-time country duets, original ballads, and driving traditional bluegrass with enough intensity, and emotion to satisfy the toughest hard-core fan of the music.

I first met Laurie Lewis in 1988 while Country Gazette was teaching at the Augusta Heritage Workshop in Elkins, W. Va. Laurie taught the bluegrass fiddle class and incredibly, I was unaware of her up until that time. During the week, at vocal workshops, fiddle demonstrations and in group classes I was impressed with her many talents. Gazette played a short concert and Laurie sat in on fiddle. We became her backup band on several songs and performed “I’m Gonna Be The Wind” and “When The Cactus Is In Bloom” complete with Laurie’s great yodel that brought down the house. I got a copy of Laurie’s “Restless Rambling Heart” album that week and decided then and there that when I grew up I wanted to be Laurie Lewis. I remember three things about Laurie from that week: She was a great performer, a great teacher and as someone later told me: after Jim and Jesse, she had the best haircut in bluegrass music. It’s been exciting to watch her grow and mature as an artist.

Lewis has hit her stride. The music she and her band Grant Street are creating now will surely be considered the prime output of her career. She represents the emerging dominance of a new group of performers in bluegrass music. Laurie’s music, while inspired by the original artists of bluegrass, reflects her own experiences and her largely urban upbringing. Consequently, her music speaks to her generation—a group that includes many of today’s new bluegrass and acoustic music fans. Just as the rural fans of the 1940s related to Bill Monroe’s songs of cabins, mountains, home, and family, so Laurie’s fans find the great themes of traditional music in more familiar settings. With or without a banjo, there is no mistaking Laurie’s bluegrass roots in the themes of her songs, the texture of her music and her powerful voice. Her music, firmly rooted in tradition, embraces all the influences of her life and combines them into a unique expression.

Laurie’s music does not exactly fit her own definition of bluegrass—she feels her music includes too many other influences. Like the ten blind men each describing an elephant by touch, your opinion depends on where you are standing. “We have so much respect for bluegrass and the traditions of the music…we never treat it lightly or make fun of it,” Laurie says. “I would be the first person to say that what I play is not bluegrass, but…if somebody said ‘There’s no bluegrass in your music,’ I would be the first person to say, ‘Well, wait a minute, yes there is. It’s all over the place in there.’ ”

Lewis was last featured in this publication in 1990. She has come a long way since then. IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year awards in 1992 and 1994 and the Song of the Year award for “Who Will Watch The Home Place” left no doubt that she has been embraced and claimed by bluegrassers as one of their own. Her performance with Del McCoury on the 1995 IBMA awards show was a hallmark bluegrass performance.

It is a busy and exciting time for Laurie Lewis and Grant Street. They have appeared on numerous national television and radio programs including The Texas Connection, The Lonesome Pine Special, TNN’s Music City Tonight, NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion” and “E Town.” A video of “Slow Learner” from the “True Stories” album has been broadcast widely and Laurie and Tom Rozum received a Grammy nomination in the traditional folk category for their duet album the “Oak And The Laurel”. Fans of folk, traditional country, acoustic music and commercial music are learning what bluegrass fans have known for some time now; Laurie Lewis is a major talent.

Music was part of Laurie’s home life from an early age. Her father played flute in the Dallas Symphony while in medical school and Laurie remembers her maternal grandmother playing Norwegian folk tunes on the family piano. Laurie showed an early knack for music that would serve her well as an adult musician. At age seven, she took piano lessons briefly until her teacher discovered Laurie wasn’t reading the music, but memorizing the pieces by ear from the playing of her teacher. Laurie also quickly memorized songs taught in music classes in grade school—many of which were American folk melodies and fiddle tunes with words. To this day, words are easy for her to memorize. At 12, she began classical violin lessons and her childhood musical goals were simple: to play violin in a mariachi band or perhaps to be discovered. “I used to practice near the window…so that maybe somebody from a traveling circus would come by and whisk me away,” she remembers with a laugh. When Laurie was 13 or 14, a friend took her to the Berkeley Folk Festival. “That’s when the whole world of music opened up for me,” Laurie recalls. The annual week-long music festival held on the University of California at Berkeley campus had a tremendous impact on Laurie. Over the next few years, she saw a who’s who of classic folk performers at the festival including Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, Mississippi John Hurt, and Jesse Fuller, as well as the younger crop of folk performers such as Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and Joan Baez. Laurie feels a tremendous debt of gratitude to Barry Olivier who produced the festival for exposing her to these great performers.

Inspired by the folk scene in Berkeley, Laurie started playing guitar and singing with friends, teaching herself from books and taking some community guitar classes. She even took banjo lessons for a while after seeing the Dillards open for the rock group the Byrds. Her banjo teacher’s greatest impact may have been his box of bluegrass records which he left with Laurie during summer vacation.

After a hiatus from music for several years during which she studied modern dance, Laurie was encouraged by a friend, Geoff Berne, to take up fiddling after he learned about Laurie’s violin experience. Geoff took her to near some fiddling at Paul’s Saloon, a local center of bluegrass music activity, and she was hooked. About the same time, Laurie was asked to play music for her sister’s wedding. To prepare, Laurie decided to learn some waltzes from a Chubby Wise album. This was the first time she had tried to learn music from a record and she was surprised at the successful outcome. “It was really easy and really exciting and it sounded good,” she remembers enthusiastically.

Paul’s Saloon became Laurie’s musical hangout where she met many musicians including the Fiction Brothers, Brantley Kearns, Paul Shelasky, David Grisman, Darol Anger, Pat Enright, Ed Neff, Butch Waller and older members of High Country. Soon she was knee-deep in the music scene, taking fiddle lessons from Paul Shelasky, playing with the Arkansas Sheiks—an old-time band, and playing in fiddle contests where she won a number of trophies including the California State Women’s Championship twice.

At the contests, she met many old-time fiddlers including Ron Hughey, an old-time Missouri fiddler. Laurie was impressed not only with Hughey’s fiddling, but with his healthy disrespect for the seriousness of the contest scene. Ray Park of Vern and Ray was also an early influence as she soaked up tunes and styles with apparent ease. Laurie fondly remembers one contest where she met Texas fiddle legend Benny Thomasson who patiently showed her a bowing lick on “Sally Goodin” over and over until she had learned it. Her good violin technique combined with an ability to quickly hear and play new sounds account for Laurie’s rapid progress on the fiddle. She may have started fiddling late, but she made up for lost time.

Laurie’s first job in a bluegrass band was in 1974 as a bass player with Pat Enright and Paul Shelasky in the Phantoms of the Opry. Later that year she formed The Good Of Persons with Kathy Kallick and by 1979, she had formed her own group, the Grant Street String Band. In 1981, Laurie opened a violin shop in Marin County which she owned until 1987. In 1986, she began her solo career in earnest with the release of “Restless, Rambling Heart” on Flying Fish. Her band was now known as “Grant Street.”

Laurie would be a standout if she were only a fiddler. While she can play complex and modern ideas on her instrument, her best playing has a gutsy edge that suggests the sound of the earliest bluegrass fiddlers. Images of Chubby Wise, Curly Ray Cline and Paul Warren come to mind. Laurie particularly enjoyed fiddling on the 1993-94 Masters of the Five String Banjo tour. “I just got so into the fiddle like I hadn’t been in years. It wasn’t my job to run the band or sing the songs or write the songs…my job was to play fiddle with these guys…I think my fiddle playing got back on track.” 

Songwriting is an important area of Laurie’s artistic expression. From an early age, she was fascinated with the written and spoken word. She particularly remembers a recording of Dylan Thomas reciting “A Child’s Christmas In Wales.” “I have this love affair with the sound of words together,” Laurie confesses. The first song she admits to writing is “I Don’t Know Why” from her second album “Love Chooses You.” Laurie was inspired to begin writing while she was in the Good Of Persons band. Lead singer Kathy Kallick wrote and sang many of the group’s songs.  “She (Kathy) had this incredibly great thing happening and all this material that was unavailable to me,” Laurie explains. “I think it was… wanting some of that for myself that finally just spurred me to write.”

Laurie’s songs deal with a variety of themes. Songs such as “Green Fields” and “Val’s Cabin” echo the bluegrass theme of longing for the home place in a simpler time and lamenting the changes that time and man have wrought. Her love songs reflect modern relationships, but in the open honest way that bluegrass songs treat the subject. Laurie’s songs get under your skin…ballads that break your heart and up-tempo numbers that lift your spirits. It is hard for Laurie to choose favorites, but she likes “Knocking On Your Door Again,” “Val’s Cabin,” “Haven Of Mercy,” “The Light” and “I’m Gonna Be The Wind.” Other performers who have recorded Laurie Lewis songs include country star Kathy Mattea (“Loves Chooses You”) and the legendary Patsy Montana (“Cowgirls Song”).

 Considering her current singing success, it is surprising that Laurie did not consider herself a lead singer for many years. She confesses that her singing abilities are a result of years of hard work. Years of dance study instilled an awareness of how the human body works including the voice. At a workshop on singing in Levelland, Tex., in 1992, Laurie shared her personal thoughtful approach to singing. Laurie feels the voice is affected by the health of the whole person and so diet, rest and exercise all play a part. These concerns are particularly difficult to control when traveling on the road.

Laurie has become a role model for young women entering bluegrass music professionally. The 1988 Blue Rose album featured an all-star lineup of bluegrass women including Catby Fink, Marcy Marxer, Molly Mason, Sally Van Meter, and Laurie. In the 1993 book, Finding Her Voice: An Illustrated History of Women in Country Music, Laurie is featured prominently in a chapter discussing women in bluegrass. This work calls her the veteran female bandleader in bluegrass. Laurie, however does not promote the angle of being a successful woman and a bandleader in the once male-dominated field of bluegrass. She appears much too busy to even notice. Growing up in the West, away from the birthplace of the music, Laurie was not exposed as much to the male-dominated bluegrass world as others have been. As she said in an interview for Finding Her Voice...“It didn’t occur to me that there hadn’t been bluegrass women in the past. Before I ran up against any prejudice, I was already a professional.”

As a bandleader, Laurie has shaped her own music to a fine point. She brightens when asked to talk about her current band. “I demand a lot out of my band members because the music that we do is so varied stylistically and texturally from one song to the next.” The combination of Tom Rozum on mandolin, Peter McLaughlin on guitar and Todd Phillips on bass perfectly compliments Lewis’ unique talents. Each member is allowed to shine while reflecting positively on the leader.  Laurie speaks of her band with fondness and respect for their musical abilities.

Extended periods of road time can be trying for the best of relationships. Even though the band flies to many of their performances, there is still considerable amounts of “drive time.” Laurie feels this band works well together personally as well as musically. “We travel a lot and it’s really easy to travel with these guys…We hang out well together, which is a lot of what counts, being in the music business the way we are.”

Tom Rozum has performed with Laurie for the past ten years. They first met when Laurie was hired to play bass on a single performance with the San Diego-based Rhythm Rascals band which included Tom. The Rascals were appearing on a radio show in San Francisco and their regular bassist was unable to make the trip. Laurie was impressed with the band and Tom’s talents as a singer and musician. Several years later at a jam session organized by Stan Miller, an early member of the Grant Street String Band, Laurie and Tom played music informally together for the first time. “Tom really scared me,” Laurie recalls with a laugh. “I thought he was such a great fiddle player and I was really shy about my bluegrass fiddling.” Later, Tom moved to the Bay area and began working with Laurie on an occasional basis. He joined the new Grant Street in 1986 and has been with Laurie ever since. Their unique vocal blend developed over the years and is beautifully documented on the 1995 Rounder release, “The Oak And The Laurel.” The closeness and sensitivity of the duets on this album reflect an awareness, familiarity and respect for each others’ music. “He’s such a wonderful singer,” Laurie says of Tom. “He’s very intuitive and sensitive in his harmony singing. It’s always been really a treat to sing with him.”

Laurie and Tom were involved in a serious auto accident in 1994. They both suffered serious injury and their recovery has been slow and painful. The duet project, “The Oak And The Laurel,” which had always been on the back burner, suddenly seemed urgent. As they said in the liner notes to the album: “It made us decide not to procrastinate any longer on things we really want to do. While the physical and psychological after-effects of this traumatic event still linger, a new sense of appreciation for life and living it well has emerged.” In celebration of recovery and a way of “giving something back,” Laurie has been training to take part in this years California AIDS Ride, a 525 mile bicycle jaunt from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Male-female duets have been rare until recently in bluegrass and this project shows what a rich musical area it can be. Will people someday speak of Lewis and Rozum in the same reverent tones as they now speak of Flatt and Scruggs or Reno and Smiley? Will Laurie and Tom be the ’90s equivalent of George and Tammy? Only time will tell.

Guitarist Peter McLaughlin brings impressive award-winning guitar skills to Grant Street. He was called on to fill the sizable shoes of Scott Nygaard who left the band for other musical pursuits. Peter and Tom had been friends for many years and played together in the Arizona-based Flying South. “He’s a phenomenonally quick player and I think we ask a lot of him in this band,” Laurie shares. “He was actually a really flashy contest player. I kind of like to think we brought out his true musicality,” Laurie explains. Laurie and Tom played on Peter’s new solo album which Laurie says is “fantastic!”

  In June of 1996, bassist Jerry Logan left the band to concentrate on his jewelry making business and Todd Phillips stepped in to fill the gap. Says Lewis, “Todd is such a kick to play with. He’s always listening and responding to what’s going on in the group and expanding the music in all sorts of unexpected directions. I feel very lucky indeed!”

As a road manager and sound man since March of 1995, Paul Knight makes a contribution that is often subtle to the audience, but indispensable to the band. Given the finances of a bluegrass band, an extra band member represents an incredible investment—one that Laurie feels is worth it. Paul went along on one tour on a trial basis and at the end of that tour Laurie remembers declaring, “If Paul ever quits the band, I’m quitting too!” Before adding Paul to the band, Laurie had spent considerable time and energy before each gig developing some kind of rapport with the local sound crew and trying to explain in detail how she wanted the band to sound. Having Paul allows the band to concentrate on getting ready to perform. Laurie sums it up, “It. changed my life!” The many benefits include shorter sound checks, no hassles with local sound people and a more consistent sound for the audience and for the performers on stage.

Laurie is busy these days: an extensive tour schedule including trips to Europe, periodic session work and producing projects for other performers. She and various members of the band taught at three-week long music workshops this summer: Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia, Bluegrass at the Beach in Oregon and Rocky Grass Academy in Colorado. In February, she recorded with Peter Rowan on his album of Bill Monroe inspired bluegrass. This project spurred Laurie to plan a similar traditional bluegrass album for which she is writing now. Her next album, however, will be a compilation of original songs drawn from her Flying Fish recordings as well as new material entitled “Earth And Sky: Songs Of Laurie Lewis,” it is due out this spring on Rounder Records. She’s also working on a songbook. Laurie, Tom and Todd will be touring as a trio for part of the summer, concentrating on and experimenting with some of their original material. Beyond these general plans, Laurie is tight lipped about where her career will lead next. “Clear direction for Laurie Lewis?…sorry,” she laughs. “It’s a book,” she observes. “It unfolds page by page… and I’m not going to jump ahead and look at the ending.”

I, however, did read ahead. I won’t spoil it by telling you the ending, but I will tell you this: We are just now getting to the really good part!