Sister Sadie
Leading Ladies of Bluegrass
Photos by Jon Roncolato
Sister Sadie made bluegrass music history last year when they became the first all-female group to win the IBMA’s “Entertainer of the Year” award. The ladies in the quintet were astounded with the prestigious honor. “I never in a million years saw that coming,” said Deanie Richardson, who also took home the IBMA “Fiddle Player of the Year” trophy. “I never dreamed that would happen. That was like the sweetest icing on the cake that night.”
“‘Entertainer of the Year’ is big for us because we’ve always been more of a ‘live’ band and we feel very honored to have been recognized in that way,” adds Tina Adair, vocalist/mandolin player.
At the same time the ladies were in a unique predicament receiving the award in the midst of a pandemic. Like the rest of the bluegrass world, the “Entertainers of the Year” couldn’t entertain anywhere.
“To have such a big night at IBMA virtually, and not get to go tour … I felt like it was devastating to be on that cloud that we were on and not get to go do anything about it,” Richardson said.
“We can’t wait to get back out there as we want all of the people to share in this experience with Sister Sadie on stage and to give them a chance to make them feel like they are a part of us,” adds Adair.
Sister Sadie, who also won “Vocal Group of the Year” at the 2020 IBMA Awards, spoke to Bluegrass Unlimited on a Zoom meeting. In addition to founding members Adair and Richardson, co-founder banjoist/vocalist Gena Britt and the two new members of the group, Hasee Ciaccio (HAY-zee see-AH-ko), bassist, and Jaelee Roberts on vocals and guitar, joined the call.
The new group configuration performed the first time together on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry on December 5, 2020 for the 75th anniversary of the birth of bluegrass on the Opry. Also, on the show were IBMA Hall of Fame member Del McCoury, The Travelin’ McCourys, and Darin and Brooke Aldridge.
“It was a really fun night and a very memorable one,” Adair said. “That was Jaelee’s debut with us. Hasee has been playing with us for a couple of years. But it basically was Jaelee’s ‘live’ tryout with us, to be honest, so no pressure there.”
“It was very nerve-racking, but the best night of my life hands down,” said Roberts. “That’s obviously everyone’s dream to play on the Opry. For it to happen for me that way was super cool.”
Sister Sadie confidently hit the stage with two potential new members and little rehearsal beforehand.
“[We played] about ten minutes before we went on stage,” Adair said.
“They found us a big room that we could spread out in with COVID compliance and we rehearsed,” adds Richardson. “I think we ran through each song a couple of times. We felt good about it. Jaelee had done her homework. None of us had played together in a year. It just felt great to play some music together.”
“I think [that’s] the beauty of Sister Sadie this whole time,” says Adair. “We seem to have that chemistry and that vibe. It makes it easier when we get together. We hit that first note, and you feel the magic about it. We were all having fun with it. That stage is such an honor to play on whenever we get to play it. So, it was a really special night for a lot of different reasons.”
“I still get nervous as hell every time I walk out there,” Richardson admits. “I’m still scared to death. I love it. Growing up backstage at the Opry when I was a little girl and dreaming of being in that staff band and on that stage … every time you’re out there it’s kind of surreal. Am I really on the stage doing this with these women that I love so much and looking out there at that audience that I looked out at when I was a little girl and watched Loretta Lynn walk out on that stage? Every time I walk out there is like a walk through my whole life.”
“The staff at the Opry always makes us feel at home and like family,” Britt adds. “It’s a really cool atmosphere for all of us.”
Their Opry performance also marked the first time Sister Sadie had performed without founding member five-time IBMA “Female Vocalist of the Year” Dale Ann Bradley. She stepped down from the group at the end of last year to focus on her solo career.
“Deanie and I have had a long history of playing and been longtime friends with Dale Ann and always will be,” says Britt. “It was bittersweet, but I’m glad to see us moving on and going on in a good direction. We’re real happy for Dale Ann and for her to be doing what she’s doing.”
“It was always a lot of fun singing with Dale Ann,” Adair said. “It felt like sisters singing together. But I’m proud of her for being able to move on as an artist, to recognize that’s where you’re at in that particular point and time in your career, life and age.”
Never intended to be a regular touring band, Sister Sadie assembled together in December 2012 at The Station Inn in Nashville, TN for a one-night-only show. The multi-talented band brought together the powerhouse fiddling chops of Richardson with Beth Lawrence laying down a solid bass groove, and the impeccable vocals of Bradley, Adair, and banjoist Britt. Hasee Ciaccio started filling Lawrence’s shoes on bass over the last couple of years.
“We first heard Hasee in Dallas, TX at the Farmers Branch Bloomin’ Bluegrass Festival,” Adair said. “Dale Ann and I were walking, trying to find where our record table was, and we had our backs turned to the stage. We heard this huge bass tone. It was just incredible!”
When Lawrence left Sister Sadie, the women remembered Hasee from her performance with Molly Tuttle and gave her a call while she was on tour with Laurie Lewis and The Right Hands in Berkeley, CA.
“Deanie called me and asked me about some dates,” Ciaccio recalls. “It was unbelievable how the dates fit in like a puzzle between all the tour dates I had out with Laurie at that time.”
The Myrtle Beach, South Carolina native has shared the stage with artists including Del McCoury, Ricky Skaggs, David Grisman, Vince Gill, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. She released a debut album, Hay, in 2018 that featured traditional stringband music.
“It was a natural fit, so comfortable, playing with them for the first time,” Ciaccio says. “We didn’t rehearse. I showed up at Dollywood, and the first note I played with them was down beat at whatever time on stage. For the last couple of years, we’ve all gotten closer and that energy and feel on stage is even tighter than it was in 2019.”
Richardson not only loves Hasee’s stellar upright bass playing but also her ability to “kick it in the rear.”
“Her energy on stage is just what this band needed,” says Richardson. “She fires me up, watching her play, her wallowing all over the stage back and forth there. It creates a great visual for the audience. It also creates a great driving point for us on stage. She and Jaelee both have brought this youthful energy to the band.”
Hasee didn’t start playing bass until about ten years ago. Growing up, she and her family visited MerleFest in Wilkesboro, NC when she saw a young band from Alaska playing traditional music.
“I had never seen a woman playing the bass before, and the light bulb went off,” Ciaccio said. “I realized for the first time that I could play bass if I wanted to. It hadn’t crossed my mind before. I was trying to play the mandolin up to that point.”
“When I graduated from high school, I went to ETSU in Johnson City to get one of their degrees in Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music, and that’s where I really first started playing. In the dorms at night people pick every evening. That’s really where I got my feet wet. I really look up to people like Missy Raines, Mike Bub, Mark Schatz and the list goes on and I try to emulate what they’re doing on stage.”
Adair remembers the story of her first meeting with Hasee off stage.
“We were in the parking lot at the hotel [it was 9am] and she comes walking out eating a raw, sweet turnip. She said she grew it herself which is quite admirable. However, I was afraid she was going to ask me if I wanted one, but instead she said, ‘I’ve cooked you all strawberry pie.’ I was like, ‘You’re going to fit just fine in this band’,” she said, laughing.
The other addition to the group is Jaelee Roberts.
“She’s just so cute,” Richardson says.
“She listens to us,” Adair jokes and the rest of the ladies laugh together. “She don’t know no better yet.
“She comes from good blood, and she brought it in the tryouts and the vocal blend,” Britt adds about Roberts abilities. “It’s really been a great fit.”
Roberts is the daughter of Danny Roberts, the superbly talented mandolin player in The Grascals and founding member of New Tradition. Her mom is Andrea Roberts, owner of The Andrea Roberts Agency and the past bandleader of notable bluegrass group, Petticoat Junction.
“I played in a band, New Tradition, with Jaelee’s dad when I was 13, 14, 15 years old” says Richardson. Gena played in a band with Jaelee’s mom, Petticoat Junction. Now, here’s mine and Gena’s old butts playing in a band with Jaelee,” she adds, as they all laugh again.
“I’ve known them my whole life basically,” Roberts says of her bandmates. “To be able to be playing with them is really cool. I’ll see people tag my dad and Deanie in pictures of them playing together on stage. I’ll see pictures from Petticoat Junction when Gena and my mom were young…well, younger.”
“Now that they’re so old!” Adair chimes in as all they laugh good-naturedly.
“What’s impressive to me is her hunger, drive and ambition to make music,” Adair adds on a serious note. “I knew she could sing really well, but coming into the audition, I really enjoyed her guitar playing. We need somebody in Sister Sadie that has a great right hand for the rhythm guitar part and she has that.”
Jaelee began her journey in music at age 4, with fiddle lessons, and in time she added guitar, mandolin, and piano to her repertoire. By age 12, she was a featured vocalist/harmony vocalist on four songs for Tom T and Dixie Hall’s Pickin’ Like a Girl collection by the Daughters of Bluegrass and three songs on her dad’s solo project, Nighthawk. Last year she signed a contract with Mountain Home Records and has released her first single, “Something You Didn’t Count On,” that she co-wrote with Theo MacMillan, from her forthcoming CD.
After her Opry performance with Sister Sadie, she received a phone call on Sunday after church.
“I was so excited in that moment,” Roberts says. “When we got off the phone, I was like, ‘Did that really just happen?’ I’m ready to play and work. It’s a huge step for me, and I get to learn from all these ladies that I’ve always looked up to.”
Other than the Opry show, the ladies of Sister Sadie were apart and didn’t get to perform or record music in 2020.
“We got along last year better than we ever have,” Richardson jokes. “Depends on who you ask,” chimes in Adair, cackling.
The Sadies each bring a different personality into the group. Who’s the funny one? Tina Adair turns her hat sideways, makes a funny face and says, “Who do you think?”
“When we do have stories, they usually do involve Tina,” Britt says. “They involved Deanie and Gena too, but they definitely involve me,” Adair admits. “We’ll never be able to tell most of them.”
When it comes to the serious side of the venture, they divvy up responsibilities with their do-it-yourself approach.
“We kind of have a system down where Gena handles all the booking and money, Tina handles record label business and the website, and I handle sound and some of the travel,” Richardson said. “We all pitch in and make it work. We do this ourselves. We don’t have booking agents, management and a team around us. We women do it all, plus other jobs,” she says, pointing to her granddaughter, Meadow, who snuck in on the Zoom chat.
The band members were honored again in March when the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum featured Sister Sadie as part of the American Currents: State of the Music exhibit. The Hall selects artists, musicians, and songwriters “who have shaped the broadly defined genre of country music.”
“It was pretty surreal seeing all of our instruments in there in the same Hall of Fame as Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and Lester Flatt,” Britt said. “There’s a whole exhibit on us. It was pretty heart-warming.”
“We got to walk around the Hall of Fame, just us, and look at many iconic artifacts such as Bill Monroe’s mandolin, Earl Scruggs’ banjo and Mother Maybelle’s guitar as well as the wonderful Station Inn exhibit,” says Adair.
Seeing the venue where the ladies got their start as a group was especially emotional. The Station Inn owner and 2020 IBMA Hall of Fame recipient JT Gray passed away a week after the Sadies’ exhibit opened. “JT loved us and we loved him dearly,” Adair adds. “He was such a supporter of us. He came to every one of our shows at the Station Inn and would stay until the very last note. He’d be one of the last ones to leave after a Sister Sadie show. He really encouraged us girls. That meant a lot to us.”
“The Station Inn has always been a second home to us,” Britt said. From that fateful night when the original band members stepped on The Station Inn stage, the ladies have enjoyed a wealth of awards and accolades. The band’s first CD, a self-titled album, rose to Number One on the Roots music charts and Number Four on the Billboard Bluegrass chart. Their second album, Sister Sadie II, debuted at Number Two on the Billboard Bluegrass chart and received a Grammy nomination for “Best Bluegrass Album.” Meanwhile the individual members have been nominated and awarded several top trophies for their own merits.
With the huge success the group has experienced, they surely could burn up the roadways, touring constantly. For now, that’s not the game plan. Each lady has individual careers they’re focusing on as well.
So, what lies ahead for Sister Sadie? Sometimes it’s a simple pleasure.
“I want some monogramed jackets with a Sister Sadie logo on the back,” Hasee answers, chuckling.
Seriously, though, it all comes back to that perfectly gelled sound when the first note is struck.
“Every time we get together to play it’s like okay there it is,” Britt said. “That’s why we do this. There’s never a question when we start playing. That’s exactly why we do this. I want to keep having those ‘pinch me’ moments. We’ve had a lot of those over the last few years, and I think we have the opportunity to do that with this configuration. I’m excited about it.”
“I want to start cutting a new record that represents this current configuration, and (have) it be better than the last one and the next one be better than this one,” Richardson said. “Just keep making records and playing some shows. And keep having fun. We laugh, we cry, we fight, we love each other. Some days we don’t like each other, and then we keep moving right along. It’s a family. That’s what it is. Most importantly, when we hit that first note together, no matter where it is, it’s magic. We all look at each other like, “Oh! That’s what it’s all about!”
