Dan Tyminski: A Bluegrass Icon for the Modern Age

THE MASTER STORYTELLER MAKES HIS WAY TO THE MAHAIWE STAGE ON NOVEMBER 15

By Anastasia Stanmeyer Photos By Ashli Linkous

By Anastasia Stanmeyer // Photos By Ashli Linkous

For those of us looking for more bluegrass and roots music in the region beyond the FreshGrass Festival at MASS MoCA from September 19 to 21, we’re in for a real treat in South County. The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington has presented some impressive bluegrass artists, such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Del McCoury, Béla Fleck, and others. On November 15, Vermont native Dan Tyminski will perform at the Mahaiwe for the first time. His voice famously accompanies George Clooney’s performance of the Stanley Brothers’ classic song, “I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow,” in the film, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, and his vocal collaboration with Swedish DJ Avicii on the song “Hey Brother” has been streamed more than a billion times. Tyminski’s diverse solo projects and years of work with Alison Krauss & Union Station have yielded him 14 Grammy® Awards for solo and collaborative projects. 

Dan Tyminski earlier this year at the Paramount Bristol in Tennessee. 

Tyminski’s live shows with his band have become bluegrass fan favorites. During a recent interview, he discussed his musical journey that spans over five decades, touching upon his songwriting process, the challenges of managing a band, and the evolution of his live performances. Tyminski is also passionate about playing golf and his recent return to competitive foosball, with a goal of winning an amateur title at the World Foosball Championships in New Orleans at the end of August. (By the time you read this this article, we will know whether he succeeded.)

I’ve read that while growing up in Rutland, Vermont, your parents introduced you to the local music scene there in the country bars and at square dances. One hundred percent. My parents were not musicians or players themselves per se, but they were big music fans. Anytime there was live music—whether it was a square dance, a country bar, a bluegrass festival, a fiddle contest, anything that had people on a stage, scratching on strings—we tried to go.

How was living in Vermont and, more expansively, in the northeast, impactful on your music development? All of my early training was in that area. Where I live now in Nashville, there's music everywhere, and when I moved to Ferrum, Virginia, it was a hotbed of country music. There was not a lot of it where I was growing up, but I had access to a record when I was 12 years old that made me want to play the banjo, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I got a banjo for my thirteenth birthday, and I went to bed with it. I woke up with it. It never left my hands. If there was any live music that was in that area, that's where I went to watch and glean anything that I could from musicians who played in the Northeast, like the Berkshire Mountain Bluegrass Festival. My early training ground was all local live music from that part of the country.

How long did you live in Vermont? 

I lived my whole life there until I moved away when I was 19.

Any locations you can recall where you used to hang out and listen to live music? There was no one spot. I spent a lot of time back and forth to Schuylerville, New York, to see a lot of Smokey Greene’s performances. Smokey was really great to me as a young kid growing up. He would invite me to play with him anywhere that he was. I would get on stage and play a song or two, or sometimes be a part of the band. I got a lot of exposure through Smokey and his concerts and his bluegrass festival that he ran in upstate New York.

When did you first appear on stage? I was six years old. The first time I got on stage was at a club, also in upstate New York. Smokey was playing at a club called “The You and I.” At some point, I had asked my mother if she would ask the band if I could go up and sing a song. I think to stifle me, she said, “If you want to go sing a song, you can go up and ask him.” I don't know what got in my jeans that night, but I walked up the center aisle to Smokey, who was singing. I tugged on his pant leg, and he looked down and said, “Well, why, young man?” I said, “Can I sing a song with you?” And that was my first time on stage. I remember my knees physically knocking. I was so nervous. It was very out of character for me to have asked to do something like that. But I apparently wanted it pretty bad even then. I sang a John Denver song, “Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas.” I heard the applause. I was just overtaken with it. And then a dude came up and gave me $5, and I remember thinking, how is this even possible? That was an enormously big deal for me, and that feeling still stays with me, and I still have that same nervous energy every time I get on a stage.

In my interview with Kevin and Michael Bacon (page 8), Michael also talked about that nervous feeling before going onstage. It's every show, but only for the first few minutes. I have to make sure that the first song allows me to have a little room to just let it out and loosen up. I'm very conscious that I want people to connect to the music that they're hearing. I want to feel like I'm not doing a scripted show. I don't make a setlist when I go on stage. I usually know the first two or three songs, but that's all I ever make a decision on. It’s according to the audience that I'm playing to.

That would scare the heck out of me if I didn't have a set list. Not having a set list isn't necessarily what scares me. That allows me the freedom to feel like I can steer any way I want. I think it would scare me more if I made a set list and then two songs in, I felt like I hadn't considered the songs that I really needed to play. Without a setlist, I can respond to whatever I feel like the emotion is.

What drew you to the banjo? I heard a record from J.D. Crow & The New South that they made back in 1975. The bluegrass community knows it as “0044.” It’s one of the most famous bluegrass records that had a profound influence on almost everyone that plays this type of music. It was a landmark record. So, I heard Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, J.D. Crow, Jerry Douglas, and Bobby Sloan on this recording as a 12 year old, and it just stayed with me. I had to figure it out. It was the one record—and still is the one record—that I hold as a benchmark to everything I do. To this day, it's one of the most beautiful records ever produced or made, and it still holds the same weight for me.

What’s your favorite type of venue to play in? I tend to look for the good in any venue. When people show up and they're ready to hear music and party, that's when it's great for me. If that's outside, fantastic. If it's inside, fantastic. It's nice to have theater shows where you have control over your environment, and you know the temperature is good, and you know the sound is good. I feel like you have the people captive right there sitting in front of you. So I feel like I can connect to audiences better. I tend to talk a lot more when I do theater shows.

That sounds like the Mahaiwe. What can people expect when you perform there? They can expect my interpretation of bluegrass music. What I find people saying a lot leaving shows is that they didn't expect was that they spend more time laughing than they thought they would. I like to have fun with people, and I like to talk to people in the crowd while I'm on stage. It's not a stiff show. I want to feel like someone's invited us into their living room, and we're actually connecting.

I imagine you might be talking almost as much as you’re singing. More than I ever thought I would. For the career that I've had, I've always been a sideman, behind someone, a part of a band, but never the person who is in charge of all the banter that takes place on stage. I'm finding that might be more my comfort zone than even playing music. I really love communicating with people. I really love to tell the stories of how the songs came about. I think people appreciate feeling like they get a little window inside of what's going on.

That’s interesting, because with Alison Krauss, that dynamic must have been quite different. It’s a hugely different dynamic in the shows that we do. When I played with Alison—and I loved every second that I played with that band—it was a very predictable show. If you've ever seen an Alison Krauss show at one point in the year, and you went to another months later, you're going to see the same show, the same songs, the same order, the same everything. She varies it up a little bit, but it’s kind of the same banter in-between songs. I feel like I have an opportunity to step outside of that box, and it’s offered me a level of freedom that I've never had the ability to share before. So, it’s fun territory for me to be in.

What would you say is the biggest challenge being out on your own? The biggest challenges is the stuff that goes on behind the scenes with a band. I have a band that consists of members who live in three different states. The logistics of keeping everybody together and traveling comfortably and safely everywhere we go, that’s the biggest challenge. I've never found myself, until recently, in a position where I had to make the decisions. For years, I’ve always shown up when I needed to, and I was always ready to go. I knew my part. I was there on time. If anything went wrong, it was never on me. Now, anything that could go wrong, from catering to sound issues to travel to instruments, whatever happens now it's all on me. That is a little different type of pressure than I've ever had, but at the same time, I feel like I'm young again and climbing that ladder. That's a feeling I did not expect I would have at this stage of my career, and it has a level of excitement that's hard to put into words.

What are some of the significant changes you've observed in the music industry during these 50 or so years? Just to watch music evolve in any way, shape, or form is fascinating. I got to be a part of the music in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? that really kind of changed the face of music for that period of time. I still see the residue of that one recording bleeding into so much of the music that's being made today. It's fascinating to look back at a career and see people pay homage to things that you've done, or see people you know play songs that you've either written or performed. When you realize that you've had that type of effect on a people, in my situation, it made me much more aware that my responsibilities had definitely shifted up. When you have more eyes on you, I think you're more responsible to be the entertainer that people want to see. The responsibility rises as the viewership rises, and I welcome that. It's an amazing opportunity to get to influence people with the music and to watch it change, and to think that you've been any part of what changes people's views or opinions of music. I had a guy come up to me last week, he looked like he could have been my dad. He was an older dude, he had lived a full life it looked like, and he said, “You know, I've been listening to you since I was in diapers.” I just thought to myself, I guess I am really that old. But I don't take it for granted. It's been an amazing ride and a fascinating journey to watch music evolve as it has, and I look forward to how it will continue, because it always will.

You write songs for yourself, and you've collaborated with people on songs. What's your process? I'm still finding that out for myself. I'm not one of the people who knew that he was a songwriter growing up. In fact, I told people for most of my career that I was a musician and not a songwriter. My process of writing songs really has come from a lifetime of picking on songs that I didn't like, or, building up songs that I really love, just raising my awareness of what a good song was to me. Songs are a kind of story, where you can get into the picture. I like to write songs that are easy to digest, that don't make people really think too hard to get the story. I like to take people on an easy journey that they can see visual symbols throughout the song of what I'm talking about. Sometimes I've written lyrics first and then found the music to suit it. More often than not, though, I start with music, and I let that music inspire what it makes me feel. After I hear a melody, it will pull me down a path that makes me want to chase that path in songwriting.

So for you, the music is primary, not the lyrics? For most of my life, I didn't need words at all to get the full meaning of a song or a piece of music. It was through the melodies and the vibrations of what's being played. When you can match up your storytelling to give the same emotions, to emote the same type of feelings as the melody does, that's when the songs become more successful. I really try to get a good feel for what the song is trying to tell me before I start spitting words out at it. Every song is its own little creation, and the light at the end of the tunnel of each song, for me, is so gratifying when you get there and you feel like you have found a way to complete a song. I can start a song as good as anybody, but finishing a song and looking at it like it is a complete work, that's the challenge.

Your album Southern Gothic took a different direction as far as your usual bluegrass sound. Can you discuss what inspired that shift? I would love to, because that's about the evolution of my songwriting. I had done a song with an EDM artist, Avicii, and I had a hit song called “Hey, Brother.” After that, I started spending my off time more productively. I thought songwriting would be a good way. I ultimately got a publishing deal through Ten Ten Music Group and Barry Coburn. I found myself meeting new people, like two or three different people I've never met before, every week, trying to write songs that someone might record, songs that were not for me. Everyone was familiar with “Hey Brother” and how far outside of the box that was compared to my other music. I ended up with a catalog of songs that were so far from anything that I would ever record, or really that anyone else would ever record, because of how different they were. Well, my publisher had secretly been giving these songs to a couple of record labels to gauge their interest and see what they thought. One of the labels said, “You know, we love these songs. We think these should be recorded. We're trying to figure out who we could give them to.” They went back to Barry and said, “Would Dan be interested in doing a record of these, his own songs?” It was the first time I ever had the opportunity to record a body of my own work. I couldn't pass it up, and I had someone by the name of Jesse Frasure who was willing to produce and be involved in this record. I made a deal with him that if he would just let me sing, I would let him have his way with all the music. So I ended up with a record that is so far outside of the music that I play. It was a crazy experience, but I was so proud at what the record would be. I don't think Southern Gothic was the best title for the record, but I look back, and I would absolutely do it again. It ultimately is responsible for all of the bluegrass songs that I write because it really made me frame my songwriter mind in such a way that it allowed me to write songs that I didn't think I could write for me. It’s been a learning experience the whole way. Southern Gothic was the start of me realizing that I was free and able to write anything I wanted.

You’ve said that bluegrass is the most difficult music to write. Why is that? I don't know if it is for all people, but it was for me. I felt like every time I tried to write a bluegrass song, it sounded like it had already been done before. I would find myself halfway through a song, and as I would listen and critique it back to myself, I would just throw it away. I needed to let go of the theme of cabins and mama and the typical bluegrass song catalog. Once I was able to step outside of that far enough, I realized that any subject matter can be a bluegrass song, if you're careful in how you craft it.

So, it brought you back home, by writing music that was outside of the traditional bluegrass genre? I never could have imagined that the process, particularly through the Southern Gothic and Avicii, that it could ever lead me back home, but in a very strange way, it actually brought me right back to the core of what I do, and it gave me new insight that I definitely didn't have before.

Tell me about making your new live album, which is on vinyl. The live album was a very happy accident. I did not plan to make an album when I first booked that show at the Ryman Auditorium. It’s such a historical place. I found myself in a cigar shop talking to one of my buddies about how happy I was to be playing the Ryman. I said that if I had enough money laying around, I would record it. The person that I was talking to was the type of person that likes to get involved when he sees opportunities. He said, “Well, if I could make that happen, would you want to make a record there?” Once I realized he was serious, I got nervous about the whole thing, and I just kind of stepped away. I put him in touch with my manager, and my friend ended up making it possible for me to turn that show into a live recording. In the very last minutes that we were getting ready to do the show, I start thinking, wow, the pressure is really on. When I do my normal show, the only thing I really care about is whether people have fun. I'm not worried if I made a mistake or if anything goes wrong. Are they going to leave smiling, wanting to come back? The last live record I did, we did with Alison Krauss & Union Station, and we were able to record multiple nights so that we had multiple copies of each song that we could pick and choose. We wore the same clothes every night, so when you watch the video, it looks like one long show one night. Well, we had one shot at the Ryman. I was so nervous starting out, I could hear the nerves in my voice. When it was all said and done, the recording came off famously. It was a scary process, but I'm so happy that I did it.

How have your live performances evolved? I’ve had the opportunity to go on the internet and watch myself from the past 30 years. I can find clips out there when I was a teenager playing, I wouldn't lift my head up. Most everyone who plays, they come about it at the same way. They start in their bedroom, they learn their craft, they work on their ability and try to gain that prowess. They spend all this time perfecting something that now has to be presented to someone. On stage playing to people, it’s not about what you can do, it's how you present what you can do. It's an entirely different skill set. I was very lucky as a kid in the sixth grade, I had a teacher who was a musician who encouraged me to practice in front of a mirror and see what you look like playing and be aware of it. It didn't really take root until later in my career. When I'm on stage playing, it's easily the happiest I am in life. It’s what I love to do. People forget this, but if you're happy, go ahead and express it. Some people can be happy and still be very stonefaced. Other people can be happy and actually smile and look at people and let them know. If there's been an evolution in how I perform, it's that I've become much more comfortable in my own skin. I'm just a much more honest entertainer than I have been in the past.

So, you’re talking about two different skill sets as a singer? There's learning your craft, and then there is learning how to present your craft. I look at entertainers like Roy Clark. Everybody knows Roy Clark. I'm not taking anything away from his skill, but what he did was not very, very difficult stuff to play most of the time. What he did was he sold it. He made you think that he was doing something no one else on the planet could do. He made it look hard. He moved his fingers faster than they needed to be moved. He was an entertainer. If I describe a show of mine as having been a good show, it’s because people were laughing and having fun, not because I felt like it was the best music we played.

Aside from the music, I hear that you’re a big golfer. I golf every chance I can. It's the one thing that I can do that takes my mind completely away from everything else in life. When you're over that golf ball, it demands everything you have. It's my number two game. People don't know this, or it’s something they're just starting to know, but my real game is foosball. Table soccer is my jam. I don't golf every day, but I play foosball every day. I've been playing since I could see over the edge of the table as a very young boy. I played at a pretty high level growing up and then found a tournament circuit and started traveling up and down the East Coast. I played 50 or 60 hours a week. I wanted to be a pro. Then I moved away in 1989 to play music and joined the Lonesome River Band. The rest of my life kind of wrote itself. I took a 32-year gap of not playing, and then a couple of years ago, I was scrolling through the internet and found a foosball tournament. I decided I was going to call my old partner from 30 years ago, and we were going to go and have some fun. He reluctantly showed up, and we took third in the event, and I took another third place trophy, something like senior singles, and I went home with table number eight in my trunk. I bought one of the foosball tables, and I got back into it. I'm an amateur foosball player, but I've been doing it a lot. I'll challenge any other amateurs to a foosball match. I've been doing that a lot more than I've been golfing. I’m looking forward to the World Championships coming up in New Orleans. That’s the only event that I block my calendar off and don't consider anything musical. My goal is to win an amateur title.

If you were to choose between playing a concert or playing foosball, what would you choose? Please don't ask me that question! [Laughs] Don’t make me choose. My answer to that is I think that there should be balance in your life. There's room for all things.

Good answer. Well, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to you coming to town. I'm so thankful for your time and for the people coming out. There's a difference in going out to watch music be created right in front of you, versus just scrolling through a screen and listening to stuff. I encourage everyone to come out, have some fun, meet some new people in the process. It's the best thing I could ever advise anyone to do. It doesn’t have to be me. Just go hear live music.

Dan Tyminski Band will perform Saturday, November 15, at 8 p.m. at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. mahaiwe.org

“When you have more eyes on you, I think you're more responsible to be the entertainer that people want to see. The responsibility rises as the viewership rises, and I welcome that.” —Dan Tyminski