The Bob Lefsetz PodcastThe man of constant sorrow... Yes, you know Dan Tyminski from "O Brother" and his work with Alison Krauss, but here's the backstory, how a guy from Rutland, Vermont made it to the apotheosis of bluegrass.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast. My guest today's guitarist, mandolinist, singer, songwriter Dan Timinski.
Dan, good to have you on the podcast.
Very happy to be here.
Okay, you were born in Rutland, Vermont.
Yes, indeed in nineteen sixty seven.
And did you grow up in Vermont?
I grew up in Vermont. Yeah, the sprawling metropolis of West Rutland, Vermont, I say jokingly. Yeah, it was a home for me up until you know, the mid late eighties before I moved south.
Well, I mean, I spent a lot of time in Vermont. We had a house in Manchester, and I went to college in Middlebury, which are like a half hour in either direction, or forty five minutes from Rutland. What was the music scene like for you growing up?
That's funny, you'd say, man, I used to deliver Coca Cola to Manchester. The music scene for me was something you had to search for a little bit. I was. I was lucky enough to have parents who liked the music enough to go somewhere every weekend for you know, to hear some live music, and they dragged me along. You know, a lot of it. You know, it might have been a country bar, it might have been a square dance, fiddle contest, bluegrass festival, in an array of whatever live music there was. I got. Uh, I got all the access we could. But we had to drive, you know, we had to We had to seek it out.
Okay. Were your parents musicians or do they play a lot of music in the house.
My parents were not musicians. My mother did, uh did sing a little bit. And way back in the day, my first memories of seeing anyone player sing was was my mom singing. And uh so she was you know, definitely lies in my influences. And uh, but there were more music fans. I mean, we didn't go for for her to perform anywhere, you know, we went out to hear whatever music was playing. And uh, I got a lot of access early in my life to live music.
Okay, but how about playing records at home or listening to the radio.
There was some playing of music at at my house, but it was not I wouldn't say it was a music filled house. It was not. It was a it was a television field house. It was it was there was I remember like on Sundays my dad would would religiously play the Polish Poka Hour. There was a radio program where I listened to Polish Poka music for an hour on Sundays. It was actually funny. It was called the Polish Poka Hour and it was two hours of music, very very strange, but so there was that there. I never had a music collection. I was never a listener of music. Account of recorded music, I don't. I can still count all the recordings I have ever purchased on my on my fingers. I've never I've never really never had any recorded music and and didn't grow up with it. My brother back in the day had some. And I can name a few albums. The few albums that I have listened to, I've listened to religiously, and I've studied them, and I can I can tell you all the parts of all the players on all those records. But that's just a very small handful of recordings.
Okay, So what records did your brother have that you remember?
Well? The Double O forty four record was the reason I'm playing music right now. The JD Crow in the New South Uh with Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice and Bobby Sloan. That was the record that was my by far, far and above every other thing, my biggest influence. That was the record I listened to over and over and over again. That was back when I wanted to, when I thought I was a AO player.
Okay, I mean I lived in Vermont in the era when you're growing up and basically was AM radio and there might be a small FM station, but you heard a lot of pop hits and occasionally you would hear a country song. I remember flipping the dial on my sixty three Chevy convertible and hearing Joe Lean for the very first time. So in terms of your environment, A, were you listening to the radio or B were you were growing up? Was it really more of this country stuff? Er? Was everybody listening to pop?
All my friends growing up listen to rock and roll? It was they were. They were all rockers, Boston Journey and ac DC and def Leppard and stuff like that. The radio stuff. My parents when they did listen to music, they listened to a lot of old time country music. So I got a lot of you know, everything from Kitty Wells to Hank Williams too, you know a lot of a lot of the old time country music was was part of their thing. They loved to, uh, to listen to the Opry. You know, they talked to you know dearly about the Grand Old Opry was their their their high mark of of all of music. But they liked old time country music. And I got a little bit of that, but I got just a lot more live old time country music. We would go listening to whatever bar bands that were around. And you know, my my very first influences were was a man named Smoky Green in upstate, New York, and he was my first time performing with anyone on a stage was with Smokey. I think I was six years old at a little club and.
Uh wait, wait wait, wait wait wait wait, you were six years old and you were performing. What were you doing.
That the very first time? Uh? I just I remember I was with my parents who were listening to a band, and I asked my mother if she would ask the band if I could sing a song with the band, and I think, to shut me up, she said, if you want to sing a song with him, you go up and ask him somewhere. And I was pretty shy kid. I really didn't speak much. I didn't I wasn't very outgoing, but somewhere I found the courage to walk down that aisleway and I went up to Smoky Green and I tugged down his pant leg and he turned around and looked for me and then had to turn his head down to realize it was a little kid. And I said, can I sing a song with you? And he said why sure? And I sang. I sang, please Daddy, don't get drunk this Christmas John Denver song. And I remember standing up there with my knees knocking together, literally scared to death. But I sang the song, and when I was done, everyone applauded, you know, and made a big deal of it. And that feeling, that excitement, that nervous energy has stayed with me, you know, for the you know, the next fifty years.
Okay, let's set the stage a little bit more. Would your parents do for a living?
My dad was a mechanic. He was a a transmission and rear end specialist, and in his uh later years of his his work, he was a fleet mechanic for Coca Cola. He was the guy in charge of keeping all of the the vehicles running for the Coca Cola company there in Rutland. And my mother she she didn't really work my whole life growing up, but I remember her having a job as a cashier. She was a head cashier at a department store. You know, middle class. Uh nothing nothing real real exciting and lines of work. At least as I saw it, music was I was. I was kind of the first one to well my brother, I'll i'll say it was much older than me. So my brother and I we were the first ones to uh had any other direction than mechanics.
Okay, so just you and your brother only two kids?
No, we have a sister. My brother was the only other child that that was was musical, although if you were to have to, you know, she won't admit it to anyone. My sister actually has a beautiful singing voice, she just will not let anyone hear it. My brother and I played some music together out with for for other people.
Okay, so where are you in the hierarchy? Are you're the middle kid, the youngest kid.
I'm the baby by a lot. My my brother and sister are nine and eleven years older than I am. And I came along. I was, I was the I was the surprise. You know a dozen years later, and.
How did your brother and sisters lives play out.
My sister still lives in in Vermont, in in the house that that I grew up in actually, and uh and my brother we played music together and we're close for for a lot of the years growing up, but grew apart. I haven't haven't had a close relationship with my brother in years. So I know he's still up in the New Hampshire area, and my sister is in Vermont, and I made my way to eventually Tennessee.
When you say you don't have a close relationship, do you have any contact at all or not for a long time.
No, it's a it's a difficult situation as sometimes siblings do or brothers do. They they fall apart, and I won't go into deep circumstance, but yeah, none of my none of my family have a relationship with with my brother anymore. He kind of decided that he was gonna sever all paths to to basically everyone. So I don't know anyone in my family who has a relationship ship with my brother anymore. He kind of just went am I A for me many years ago? The well everyone else as.
Well, Okay, so you're growing up in Rutland, you have this experience over the state line singing. At age six, you go to school. Are you in the school plays? Do you start to perform?
Not even a little bit. No, it was there was a clear line draw man. That was my escape life that I got on the weekends in school. Had nothing to do with any of the arts. No. No. In high school, I eventually, you know, for vocational I took welding and metal fabrication.
Okay, so what kind of kid were you?
Were you?
Good at school, good at sports, bad loaner, spark of the party.
As a kid, Let's see, it's hard to describe yourself as a kid. I mean I've heard a lot of other people describe me as kids, and some people's opinions vary. As a kid, I was, I was I was very quiet. I was very to myself. I was very I wasn't quick to engage, you know, I mean to you know, to to really open it up. I mean, I had parents that, though they traveled and you know, did a lot of things together, my parents fought a lot every week. Really of my life, I've seen a lot of violence, and I and and I just I didn't engage with anyone I really tried to. That's like at school, I was like in my own little bubble I was. I didn't really I only had a couple of friends. And as it, you know, turned into high school. You know, I would say more on the outcast part of school. I mean I was intelligent. I was able to make any grade I wanted in any of the classes. But I gave about enough effort to make my see and pass and got out of school as quickly as I could. Didn't didn't care for school.
It was a different era. My parents fought a lot, and they hit us a lot, but they stayed together.
So what was your situation, Well, my parents stayed together. My parents didn't hit me, They didn't hit the kids. They hit each other. That My parents were brawlers. You know. My mom was a fighter. She could she could whip a man's butt. I mean you you wouldn't want to tangle with with either one of them. Really. They both came from really big families. Dad had ten brothers and sisters and my mom had sixteen brothers and sisters, and they all grew up having to fight. They all grew up having to fight for everything. With each other. And you know the families were were close, yet not close. They fought amongst each other. I mean, two boys and a girl from one family married two girls and a boy from the other family. Wow. So we had a lot of family turmoil. And you know there was there was, There was a lot going on growing up. You know, some some stayed close, drifted apart. It was just you know, I I I couldn't deal with the with with the fighting and the the what I felt was was it was a lot of it was very negative. I was I really was looking for for a way out from day one. You know, from when I was a little kid. I knew I couldn't wait to get away and play music. I knew I was a musician when I was very small.
Oh okay. Was everybody in that same area of West Rutland.
Very close Yeah, West Rutland and Rutland, A lot of them were, I mean in the surrounding towns. Yeah.
And so was it like on the weekends they would all get together.
No, that wasn't. You know, we had we would go and visit some family. It wasn't. It wasn't like that type of family. There were just two big families that happened to have some you know, some marriages that went, you know to two boys and a girl married two girls and a boy. So we had some connections there for a while. There were a row of us on Clarendon Avenue where I lived. There were a bunch of a line of Timen, you know, in five or six houses in a row were Timinsky's and the Timinski's and the Woodies. It was go back in the day. Man. There were just there were There were a lot of them.
Okay, So how many generations was your family in America?
My grandfather, my dad's father, came over from Poland, and my mom's parents were here for generations.
Okay, So at what point do you start to play an instrument.
I started playing when I was five or six. I started playing a mandolin and I played and because I was you know, I I I was good at it, and you know, everyone told me I was good at it, and you know, I just I kind of played around with it until I was probably twelve. It wasn't you know, I really say my music started. I got bit by the bug when I was twelve. I that JD. Crow record and it was like a beacon from the sky just came down and sucked me up. I couldn't think about anything else but that, the sound of that banjo. And it turns out, I discovered years later it was really the relationship the banjo had with the other instruments, particularly the guitar, that I really fell in love with. But in my mind, all I could think about was that banjo.
So you pick up the mandolin. Was there a mandolin in the house or did you ask your appearance to buy you one.
My brother was in the military. He was stationed in Virginia, and he came home on leave one weekend with a mandolin, and he just happened to leave the mandolin at the at the house with me. He saw that I liked it, and he left the mandolin and I and I just tinkered around on the on on that little little harmony mandolin, little round teardrop style mandolin. That. Uh, that was my first my first answer.
Okay, so you didn't have any lessons.
Oh heck no, there were no. There were no lessons. There was no There was not even there was. There was me in a bedroom and and you know, trying to make more noise than was being made outside of the bedroom, you know.
So how did you know how to tune it?
It was in two I mean when I got it, it was in tune. I mean basically in tune. And I I always had an ear for tuning. I didn't, you know, we there were no tuners. We just you know, I could tell if it was a little too high or a little too low. And I could tune it right from the very right from the very start, I think.
Yeah, So from age six when you pick up the mandolin to age twelve, when you get inspiration hearing the krone and stuff, are you playing country songs on the mandolin? What are you actually doing?
I'm playing songs on the mandolin and traveling to bluegrass festivals and playing in jam sessions and playing a little bit with my brother. My brother played the guitar and sang and I would sing. Really the only reason I sing at all is was to sing with, you know, with my brother. I didn't really ever care to sing. I always like to play. And there was just there were spar shows and my parents would take me places. I did radio shows when they were spots, you know, Smoky Green had a radio show. My parents would take me there, I would play and just sing anything I could. I mean, it wasn't particularly bluegrass until I was a teenager.
Okay, So from six to twelve you were doing all this, or after twelve.
From six to twelve, I was still going to shows and concerts and festivals and anything that my parents could get to. I went some somewhere most weekends. You know, there was some music somewhere. We would travel to it, and then I would go home and try to you know, I would more than anything. When I was playing manteline, I would sit and watch television and play whatever the music I heard on the television was all the theme songs to all the shows, the commercials, whatever little jingle would come on. I would just you know, I would just learn how to mimic, you know, whatever I heard. I wasn't really interested in. I never really learned a bunch of songs. I just it was a toy. From when I was six to twelve. It was just something I played with. I never really really tried to learn anything. It was just I played it because I could.
Okay, So now you're twelve, you get this great inspiration. How does your life change?
Well, I tell my parents that I want a banjo, and they they looked at me, to quote the line from that movie, they looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. They said, there are no banjo players around here. There are no music stores that we know of. I mean, where would we even get a banjo? And I was adamant. I said, I want a banjo. And we found a music store in Castleton, Vermont that had banjo's, a couple of banjo's hanging on the wall, not very expensive, pretty, you know, very very entry level instruments. And they they got me a banjo like two months before my thirteenth birthday. And I took that banjo and I did everything wrong you can do. I I knew what it sounded like. I was. I was. I was quick enough to be able to decipher these are the notes I want to hear, but somehow was not smart enough to figure out how the finger pattern went, so my fingers are crossed. Compared to other banjo players, my h The main technique in a banjo is your thumb would cover the fifth string and the fourth string predominantly. Your middle finger would cover the first and second string, and your first index finger would cover the third, you know, the third and the second string, it kind of stays in the middle. Somehow I learned to have my index finger covering that that you know, D and B string, and I learned my my middle finger was in the middle on the G string. My fingers are just crossed around backwards from everybody else's. And I did that for a couple of years before anybody noticed. By the time anyone noticed, I'd already developed a unchangeable pattern I could play, so I never I never went back. So I have one of the more unique banjo right hands from teaching myself, you know, I I tell everyone, if you have it when you're getting started, take some early lessons, learn some technique out of the gate. It would it'll so help the new musicians out there who want to learn, because I found that. For me, it was out of a stumbling block with the banjo. And then, of of course I didn't know at the time my career was really going to be on a guitar, you know, mandolin and guitar mostly, so the mandolin and the guitar were pretty translatable. I played that mandolin early on.
Let's just stay with the banjo. What was your inspiration for saying you wanted to play the banjo.
I heard JD. Crow in the New South. I heard J. D. Crow play I'm Walking, Yes, indeed, I heard him play Old Home Place. And when I heard that, there was something about that music, particularly the double O forty four record. That's the record that I studied that I listened to that I can you know, I can play every note of every instrument, of every solo on the whole red you know, I've studied that record inside and out. It's the one that spoke to me. Who knows why any particular piece of music speaks to anyone person, but that one grab me right to the right to the core.
Okay, So now you're playing the banjo. Are you playing the banjo with anybody else?
Now? I'm playing the banjo with again with my brother uh Stan, and we we ended up starting a band called Green Mountain Bluegrass. And we we held that together for about five years, and we ultimately played up and down the East Coast. You know, by the by the time we were you know, had played a few years. We played from Maine to Florida, anywhere we could, any bluegrass festival. I mean, you know, we were we weren't making any money. We were just we were just so gung ho to go and play. And yeah, anytime I could get in any jam session at any bluegrass festival, I was the guy that walked around with a with a banjo out of the case on, you know, strapped on walking around looking for jam sessions. I just it's I lived it every every every moment of every day. That was what was in my head.
So it was not matter like with a rock band that you were playing with the kids in school.
No, not at all. In fact, there was the kids in school had no idea what I did. They eventually found out that I that I played a banjo, and uh, and I really took you know, that was from the school aspect and my my, the friends that I had growing up, you know, that was more. I was more probably ashamed of that, or I was hiding it. You know, I didn't Uh, they didn't think bluegrass music was cool. They were rock and rollers. So you know, I didn't tell them I was out playing banjos. I just I went on the weekends and did my thing and then had a different life while I was while I was home.
So at these festivals, you just showed up. These were not paying gigs where there was somebody booking the gig, whether it be an agent or yourself or whatever.
Correct though it was a little bit of both. I mean, when we had the band Green Mountain Bluegrass, we would book any festival that we could, and then we would go there and camp out for the weekend. We would go and we would play our show whenever our show was, but we were really there to drink and party and pick and have the best time we could. We just camped out and you know, it was like vacation every week.
And does that scene exist at all today.
The bluegrass festival scene. I mean, I still like to go to the bluegrass festivals for the same reason I don't have the freedom I once had to go and walk around and you know, jam bust with with a banjo on my on my shoulder. But I still like festivals for the same reason. I still walk around. I still enjoy watching everybody get together and it's an amazing it's an amazing sense of community. Man. The bluegrass festivals are what ultimately won me over and why I stuck with this this music.
Okay, for those people not in this world, can you define bluegrass.
You know, it's that's a question I have heard so many times, and I've heard so many people ask it. You asked that question. It's a it's a difficult question to answer. I mean bluegrass music. To me, it's it's the evolution of mountain music. It's it's it's the music that that people played with the simplest instruments they could find. You know, they played what you would early call that. Some might call it country music or old time country music. It was not too unlike bluegrass music. I think when bluegrass kind of got its its niche was simply Earl Scruggs, you know, three finger banjo, and then of course you had Bill Monroe with some high harmonies, and you had some influential bands that played that style of music. But you know, everyone there are a lot of opinions of what bluegrass music actually is. You know, it's it's a typically it's a guitar, bass, a banjo, and a mandolin and a fiddle. That's if you play that and sing certain songs, I think, well you have bluegrass music. But opinions vary a lot on what bluegrass actually is. It's fun to hear the different interpretations. I've spent a lifetime trying to explain it and also trying to interpret other people's, you know, opinion of what bluegrass music is. Not everyone agrees, and that's even within hardcore bluegrass bands. Lifers can still argue about what bluegrass music actually is. You know, it's funny to me. I mean, I like all types of music, and bluegrass music is the core. It's the heart of what I do. And if you identified as bluegrass, then there it is bluegrass music.
So what point did you pick up the guitar.
When I joined Alison Krause Union Station.
So you weren't playing the guitar before that, you were just playing banjo and mandolin.
Correct, I mean I had access to a guitar, like I knew how to play a you know, I could play GC and D. I could play the court, you know, of course, but I never no, I never had a guitar of my own. I never had no. I didn't really the guitar was was not my thing. I spent all my time those formative years trying to play a banjo. Again. I played mandolin just because it was like a toy. It was fun. I played the mandolin, but I spent all my years, you know, playing the banjo, and I honestly I wanted to join Alison Krause's band as the banjo player. I was. I was mortified the day I found out ron Block got the job and and I didn't have a shot at that anymore. I never dreamed I would get asked to be the guitar player. And uh, when I was, I immediately went shopping for a guitar and and you know, sat in the sat in the woodshed, as as they would say, and uh, and tried to play ketchup, you know. And I spent a hell most of my career playing ketchup because that was that was kind of my last instrument. But turns out it was the instrument I was meant to play. It's the instrument I enjoy playing, you know, the most. It was. You know, I didn't realize the love I had for a guitar until late in my career, I mean until after I was a guitar player.
You know, some musicians can pick up any instrument and within a short period of time play it is that who you are.
That's how people would describe me. Probably that knew me growing up, I mean that was part of our stick in the Green Mountain blue grass days. I would play a song where I would, you know, run around and play all the different instruments on the stage. I was never a deep catalog on any one instrument, but it was easy enough for me. Yeah, I mean, there's there's a relationship. Once you can play one, you kind of have an understanding of the next one. And I think a lot of the players that play bluegrass music that are really that can really play any one instrument well, can probably pick up most of them and play, you know, the ones that you know, most people that can play anything with a pick can play anything with a pick. You know. Fiddle is a different category altogether. I think you have to be a totally weird person to play a fiddle, which is I'm that weird person. I mean, when I'm home, that's the only thing I really pick up here around the house anymore for my own enjoyment. I like playing the fiddle, but again as a toy because it's just fun to pick up and play. I don't I don't try to make any money play in a fiddle.
Well, let's say I dropped a clarinet at your house and I came back a week later. Would you be able to play it?
I would probably be able to play something you wouldn't want to hear. Yeah, I mean it's uh yeah, I'll I'll pick up anything and try to make music out of it. Yeah, I've. I've always kind of been that type of a tinkerer.
So you graduate from high school, you get your direloma, Yes, but you get your diploma. How do you see your life playing out? What do you what do you want to do?
Boy? At the at the point of graduating. I mean, I, like I said, I I wanted to play music gosh forever. Like I I couldn't wait to go and play music. But I mean, I think I spent I spent a little point as a teenager thinking I wanted to play baseball. You know, I was. I was a pretty decent baseball player. I thought to myself, I could probably play baseball. It's gonna sound silly, but there was a point past that, you know, the years leading up to graduation, I wanted to play foosball. I wanted to uh, I wanted to be a professional football player. I thought that would have been an amazing Okay.
Wait wait wait, I was always a shitty foosball player. But the people put a lot of time in. You know, they could work it, et cetera. You gotta put a lot of time in to be a good foosball player.
I may have more time on a foosball table than I have on instruments. Growing up, there was a foosball my brother had. I had a foosball table from the time I could see over the edge of it. There was a foosball table in the rec center that we you know, the place where the kids hung out at school. I've always played foosball and I got I got my ten thousand hours in. You can't see this on the podcast, but I'm wearing this is my foosball shirt.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is my foosball shirt.
It says, that's yeah. The shirt I'm wearing literally is a foosball shirt. No I am. I'm all about the game of foosball. So there was a like I said, okay, you know, there was a point I wanted to play foosball. But when I by the time I actually graduated, I knew that I was going to, you know, play music somehow, some way, somewhere, I didn't know where, I didn't care where I just I knew I was a musician.
Okay, let's stop for one second. Is there some sort of profe foosball.
League, now, ye know, there is, of course there is there. Well, so let's back up back in the day now, when I was playing foosball and hearing about these people in the in the you know, mid late seventies and early eighties, foosball was actually quite a big deal. There were million dollar tournaments. There's a million dollar tour. People were winning huge prizes. I mean, this is gonna be hard to believe, but it was the sixth biggest money sport that you could get into. If you were Wow, if you go back to the you know, mid late seventies, it was huge, right, you were stars, you were on talk shows. You know, you were doing the Tonight Show, if you were a big foosball Well, anyway, I loved the game. I always love to gain. So still now you skip ahead, now, all these years later, it is reduced down to very very, very very small compared to what it used to be. The There are only, to my knowledge, two professional foosball players, and by that I mean people who act actually make their living playing foosball. Only there are a couple guys todd Ler, Fredo, Tony Spraderman, not necessarily in that order, but there are a couple guys that make their living. And there's still a foosball tour that travels all over the country, all over the world. Really yeah, I still go to tournaments everywhere. I'm from here to Colorado to California, Texas, the Northeast. There are foosball tournaments everywhere. I play music, so it's really hard to catch a lot of them for a lifetime. I took thirty two years of my life off of foosball. The last major foosball tournament that I played was in nineteen eighty nine. Okay before a couple of years ago. Two years ago, two and a half, I guess now, I got back into foosball. I randomly saw it on the internet. Got me thinking about some guys that I used to know. I looked them up online and lo and behold, I start getting the speeds of Come to the foosball tournament in Lexington the tour kickoff, and I thought, well, that sounds like me. So I I show up thinking I'm gonna, you know, step right back in the way I was and I realized, you know, the foosball players got really good between when I was when they are now. Right, But I'm still a decent you know, Like I went my first tournament back, I meddled in a couple of different events, won a little bling, and I and I drove home with table number eight in my trunk and put it in the garage. And you know, for you know, the past close to three years, I've been I've been leaning over a foosball table, trying to get the trying to get my chops back.
Okay, but isn't foosball a little bit like tennis that to really be good you have to practice against someone who's pretty good themselves.
Okay, this is absolutely wow. Okay, this is what people don't consider is and you have nailed it, absolutely nailed it. To be at the highest level of well anything, you have to play against the highest level players. So foosball, absolutely you have to be able to play against great players. But we have an advantage now that I didn't have when I played all that foosball in the eighties, seventies and eighties. There was no Internet, there was no YouTube, there was no If I wanted to watch a master play foosball, I had to drive for hours and stand over a row of rows of people and try to catch what little information I could. Now I can pull up any of the top players in the world on YouTube and study their every move. Watch everything they do, Watch how they react to certain shots, Watch how they defend, watch what There's just so much information that you can glean now from watching that. I'm fascinated with it. So I, you know, I spend my I spend my time studying so that I know the players. When I show up to the tournaments and and I've done well, I've you know, I I'm uh, I'm still a formidable competitor when it comes to foosball. I've played enough against the time I mean, I've played against the world champion. I've played I've been in the pits with the best players in the world and held my own.
You know, it's okay. As I say, I was never a good foosball player, but when foosball became a big deal in my life, it was the machine you put money in, and then they had tables you could take it home, but they were not of the same level. Is there a standard foosball table like did every all the tournaments are on.
There is and it depends on where you are in the world as to what table it is. Right now, in America, the current league table is called the Tornado Table, but it has changed through the years. When I first started playing, it was a ts tournament soccer table. They called it the Million Dollar table Ts table, and then it switched to the Dynamo Table, and then it switched to there's still there's still some other branches. There's a Warrior table, there's a Warrior tournament series, or at least there used to be, but now it's Tornado.
And is there any real difference between these professional level tables?
Huge difference if you're good on a let's say there's a there's a Bonzini circuit, Like if you play in Europe, you'll play a lot on Bonzini tables. And if you're a good Bonzini player, that does not mean you're a good Tornado player, and vice versa. They're completely different skills. I mean, it takes it takes a while to really develop the touch. I mean it's it's like if you're a guitar player and you're gonna all of a sudden, say you're gonna switch to a different instrument. Well, you know how to hold a pick and you know how to press a string down, but there's a whole different set of variables that you have to learn to be able to play from table to table. And there are tournaments like international tournaments that have multi table tournaments where you have to play one match on a Tornado and then the next match on a Bonzini and the next match on there's. Yeah, it's it's interesting. So there are there are people who are great at at each one and there's there's only a few players that are really masters on all of those tables. You know right now, the man his name is Tony Spraderman. He's the guy to look you know, He's the guy I watch. He's he's he's my foods, my current foosball hero and uh I befriended him, met him at a few tournaments and got to got to play against him a little bit. And it's the most fun I could probably have right now at this point in my life, is to stand against one of those high level players and play foosball. That is the I will not see that level of adrenaline and anything else I do at this age in my life. No, nothing even close.
Well, it's exciting. Switching gears back to our narrative. So you graduate from high school, do you get a day job or you immediately play music? What what happened?
I did. I graduated from high school and my dad was a fleet mechanic for the Coca Cola company, and he asked me if I wanted to go to work for him as as an assistant mechanics assistant and when I worked part time, and I thought that'd be excellent. So I went and I took a took this job with my dad that if I was smart, if I was a smarter kid, I would have stayed right there with that job because it was perfect. It was really good pay, you know, compared to everyone else. It was really good hourly pay. And I could pick my own hours. I didn't have to go untill noon if I didn't want to, you know, I just I just had to work twenty hours a week. It didn't matter what twenty hours. But after a few months of doing that with my dad, actually not even a few, probably two months I think I worked with my dad, they needed a driver and they asked my father. They said, can your son drive one of these trucks. And of course my dad he says, oh yeah, he can drive that thing. Never I'd never been behind the wheel of a truck like that in my life, right, But he goes, oh, yeah, he can drive it. And they said, do you want a job, you know, driving? They said it'd be another you know, three three more dollars an hour, and you'll get to work some overtime and you know a lot more money benefits. And they I said, yeah, sure, I took this job driving Coca Cola truck delivering down to Manchester. And uh, couple things. First of all, I'm really really bad with directions, Like I am the poster child for the for the you know, the Google Maps. I need to follow that blue line wherever I'm going right. Well, back in the day, there was you know, we didn't have that. We had a sheet full of instructions and it was so I was taking an extra two hours a day just spending just being lost trying to find places. Right. It was the worst job I could have ever had. But during the course of that job, that is when I knew, be on the shadow of a doubt, that there was there was nothing that would keep me from playing music. I was looking for literally the first opportunity I could for a for a music job. And it turns out that after I had that job less than a year, I think I maybe eight months, I delivered Coca Cola maybe seven months, seven or eight months, and I got an offer from the Lonesome River Band and they asked if I was interested in and in playing with him, and and at the time again I thought I was going to be banjo. Turned out it was they really wanted the mandolin player more than they wanted the banjo player. But at the thought of taking a bluegrass job, I was, You've never seen a person happier to walk in and give his notice to a company. I was. I walked in literally giddy. I said, well, sorry, boss, I said, I'm not going to be able to keep this job, you know, I was. I was out. And then of course that first I think the first three years combined. I went back and saw this in my in my records, my first three years, my tax record showed a I made nine thousand dollars for three years combout three years together, nine thousand dollars, and uh, probably one of the happiest times in my life. Couldn't. I was. I was on top of the world. Man, tell me about it.
Forgetting the money. What were you doing that made you so happy?
I was. I had moved away from home. I moved to Virginia. I was on my own. I was away from any stigma that bluegrass wasn't cool. I was now in an area where were They honestly didn't take you know, the area that I moved to, they didn't take to a lot of northern people moving into that area. But I was. I excelled in the bluegrass world, and I was accepted, you know, just with open arms everywhere I went because of the music. And I got to basically redefine myself as who I was. I got to I got to have a clean slate and say this is this is who I am. You know, I I dropped some habit that certainly would have killed me or at the very least ruined me had I not moved away and taken the music job.
You know, And what kind of habits are we talking about?
Oh stuff you don't want to go in on into this podcast. I'm sure you know, just uh you know. I was. I didn't grow up. I didn't have the happy fluffy childhood, and I turned to I turned to anything I could turn to to mask it, and I did any drug I could find until it was gone. Didn't matter what it was. You know. Luckily I never found anything that was really hard, or I might not ever made it out as you know the way that I did. But I like I I got an offer to move away, and I got to wipe the slate clean. I got to say this is who I am now, and I let I let some things go.
Okay. But traditional, I mean, I understand that lifestyle. Drumont is a blue state. Now you go back forty or fifty years a different state, much more rural, much more red, much more local people living on the edge. But traditionally one gets in the music business and it's the so called sex drugs in rock and roll. You're telling me you got into the band and then you went straight.
Music for me was never the sex drugs in rock and roll. So yeah, the type of music I played did not. I never found anyone that was doing cocaine and acid and mushrooms and taking pills and like, there was just none of that and any of the music that I was playing. The worst, the worst thing I ever saw, basically, really in my whole career of playing music, the worst thing I've ever seen with any of the musicians that I've ever run. I mean, I've seen you know, I've seen weed smokers. That's that's the height of the big drugs, you know. And the music that I've played there's there's been. It's been a really clean existence. And then of course I ended up with Alison Krause and Union Station, which arguably one of the cleanest, most moral bands that you'll you'll ever you'll ever know of, you know, and maybe in history. So I just for me, my path, Yeah, it it was a it was a clean up process for me. I I was where I I can see it is kind of fun. I never thought about it that way. Normally you would grow up pretty clean and then hit the music and then all of a sudden, you know, the debauchery starts. But no, it was the other way around. I was. I was close to my demise at a at a young age, trying to mask who knows what, you know, whatever a kid is trying to, you know, hide from. I was hiding from it. And I got to start over, man, I got to I got to move away from any influence that I had, and it was it was an amazing point in my life. The only thing I really gave up that you know, was was Who's Ball?
So how did the Lonesome River Band know you to find you to ask you to join the act?
They had played a show in upstate New York in the mid eighties that the band that I was had with my brother, Green Mountain Bluegrass, was the opening act for So we had played the same night in this music hall in upstate New York. And after we had played the show together, we hung out for a little while, had a drink. We're talking because it was it was a big deal for us. We were opening up for a genuine southern bluegrass band. That was a big deal for you know, this this little bluegrass band from from Vermont, and uh we just we met him back then, and I guess a couple of years had passed and I think they were they were looking for a banjo player and as the the guy who they had called, they wanted to hire this guy named Kevin Church. I know that Tim Austin had called Kevin Church and said, Hey, would you'd like to play banjo? Kevin said no, I'm into the gig that I have right now. He says, but have you thought about that kid Dan to Minsky? And Tim said, who is Dan? To Minsky? He said, remember you played with that band from Vermont. He says, oh, yeah, he had remembered me from the show we played. So he just he called and asked if I was interested in coming down and trying out, And again he really didn't make me any offer. In fact, he said, well, right now, where we need a couple of musicians, you know, where we had two members leave and there's not a lot of work. And if you'd have to move here, you couldn't take the job and still live in Vermont. You'd have to move to Virginia. And if you moved to Virginia, you're gonna have to have some other job to support yourself because we're not making enough money to support you. So just you got to know what you're getting into. And man, all I could hear was do you want to play bluegrass music? That's the only that's the only thing that registered in my mind. And I said, yeah, absolutely, And I went there and I was you know, I took whatever whatever jobs I could to support myself until the music finally got to a point where it supported me.
So there were three years you with the Lonesome River Band. How often did they work and at what point in the tenure, if at all, could you give up your day job.
Well, the day job really wasn't much of a job anyway to start with. So really the bulk of any money I made was was with the band. I mean, the first three years that I worked with the Lonesome Ever Band, there was no money, but I was with them a total of five years. The last couple of years we actually got we had redesigned how we had done things. I was making a little more of a little bigger cut of the money, and we were working more. I mean, by the time Ronnie Bowman came in the band, we had reconfigured. We actually started to actually take off. It was a very It was some turmoil in my life because it was a weird timing. When Alison asked me if I wanted to join Union Station. I was such a huge Union Station fan at that point in time. I didn't care if it was on guitar, I didn't care. She just said, would you learn how to play a flute and join this band? I would have said yes, that was where I was at at that point in time. But when she asked me to join the Union Station Band, we were at the height of what the Lonesome River Band had ever done in their career. We had just one album of the year with carrying the tradition, we were starting to pretty much get to name our festival. We could play, you know, places we weren't able to play previously. So it was a tough decision to take the job with Alison. I ended up taking this job and didn't stay with her except maybe four or five months, maybe five or six months. I went back to the Lonesome River Band. I don't know if a lot of people know this. I took the job with Allison and didn't stay went back to the Lonesome River Band for another year or year and a half before I was asked again if I would consider coming back to the Union Station and then of course I went back, and you know the rest is history.
Okay, how did Alison find you the first time?
Through the recording that I had done with the Lonesome River Band. The very first thing that I did with that band was a record called Looking for Yourself and Somewhere or another they had heard that record and she she uh that I got my name through through that record. I apparently liked it enough to call. I remember the first time I got a call from Alison's band. It wasn't it wasn't Alison Crouse who called me. It was actually Alison Brown, who was playing banjo in the band at the time, and they had called and asked if I would consider coming aboard, and I gave him a hard no. Man. I was at that point in time, I was so into the Lonesome Riverband. I had just taken the job. It was the early years of the LRB. I didn't you know. I wasn't ready to leave before I figured out what we had. And it wasn't until a couple of years later that I really became infatuated with Union Station. And when I got the offer again, there was no way to say.
No, okay, so why did you leave and then come back?
I felt guilty that I was letting my brothers down. I felt like Ronnie and Tim and Sammy were you just you have a kinship when you have a band, you travel that many miles with people that you're close to. You just I felt like I was letting my family down, and I felt like there was you know, I was. I was well they were first of all, they were relentless. They they wanted me back, and they let me know in every way, shape and form get me back. You know, I'll give you. I'll give you a little I'll give you one little gem here that a lot of people don't know that this is funny, but the song that Ronnie Bowman wrote was actually one of the songs that got me back. Ronnie Bowman wrote a song called you Gotta Do what you Gotta Do. If you're familiar with the Lonesome River Band, you might know this song. It's a song about a girl that says when when the songs the song reads, I just got a call from my good girl today. She said she must be going on her way, that there's better things on down the line, and I won't try to change her mind. It seems she seems to think we're better off this way. But my heart it breaks in two. I can't believe we're really through. And the song goes on and on and it's this man pleading to a woman. But what people don't know is Ronnie wrote that song about me going to Alison, he says, and though I though I want you to stay, you're leaving any way, but you gotta do what you gotta do. And that was the song. So he sings me this song, you know, and I and I cried like a baby. And it was just because my heart was already broken that I felt like I'd let him down. And yeah, somehow it got the best of me and I after about four or five months, I think five months maybe with Alison, I explained that I couldn't do it. I had to go back to the Lonesomeriver Band, and then we went back and recorded one or two more things. I forget after, but I felt like it was a meat, you know, A year back with the Lonesome River Band and I was scratching my head wondering what I was doing because in my mind, the ultimate music was being made by Alison Crouse and Union Station. They were the to me. They had the diversity, they had the depth, the multi dimensional sound. Lonesome River Band for me, it was a really that was we were kind of we had one specialty thing, you know, that we did. We weren't as diverse, we weren't as multi dimensional with our material. I felt like to me as as Union Station was. There was just I was fascinated with the way they were just they seemed like they were outside of music altogether. They could do anything. I don't know, it just it seemed so big to me when I got when I got the call to go back the second time, I couldn't say I couldn't say no. I wanted to be a part of that type of music that was not just the same song over and over again that I felt like I was doing with the Lonesome River Band. By that point, I was a little bit over what we were doing and ready to ready to be with Alison.
Okay, just to be very specific, because the way you said the story earlier that you wanted to be the banjo player, but somebody else got that role. And then she asked if you could play guitar, So literally, you're playing in the rondsome river band, you're making these records. She got a hold of you and said, did you want to play banjo on a granulartle level?
What? No, I never got a I never got a banjo offer for Alison in Union Station. With the times when I when I had befriended that whole bunch. The whole time I was with the Lonesome River Band, I would still go to the Allison shows if I could make one, and sometimes I would jump up on stage and sing a song with her, you know, I would guest up on stage and do a song here there. In my mind, I always wanted to be the banjo player in that band. I always hope that if Alison Brown were ever to leave, that she would ask me to play banjo. And when they got ron Block in that band, it was just settled. You know. I was out of that altogether. Same thing with the Lonesome River Band. When I took that Lonesome River Band job, I thought I was taking the banjo job, and I only played. I only ever played one show on the banjo with the Lonesome River Band because they needed both. And they said we could find a banjo player if you'd be willing to play the mandolin. So I said, sure, I'll play mandolin until we can find the right guy, and then I'll play band. You know, I never did get to play banjo, which was the whole point for me growing up. Playing was all I ever wanted to do was play a banjo for any band, right that was my that was my dream. But no, I got the guitar job with Alison, you know after well wait, just.
A little bit slower, you know.
Yeah, in order, I took the job with the Lonesome River Band, right. I played with the Lonesome River Band for three or four years before I think close to four years before I moved over to Alison. I moved to Alison Crouse Union Station, played for about four or five months, went back to the Lonesome River Band and played for No, No, No No.
I got the order.
Oh okay, I'm missing the question.
So you go on stage, somebody calls you and says, hey, we want you in the band, but you got to play guitar. How does it literally go down?
Oh? How it goes down? Was on April twenty fifth at Merle Watson Memorial Bluegrass Festival. I was getting ready to go and play with Alison, you know, a guest spot and ether she was playing at Merle Fest and I was going to go up and play a guest spot as I normally was, as I was doing at that endy time, I was around him. I was getting up because we were friends. I was jamming with him and Tim Stafford came up to me and said, hey, Dan, I want to talk to you because I'm getting ready to put my notice in with Alison, and I feel like she's going to come running to you directly, so I wanted you to have some time to think about it before she puts you on the spot, just as a courtesy. Right. So, now I'm really nervous, and I'm thinking, well, okay, he's gonna quit. That doesn't mean she's going to come to me, right And then it couldn't have been half an hour later I see her be lining towards me. She goes Dan, She said, I need to ask you a question, and I said, okay, what do you got? She said, Tim Stafford just put in his notice. She said, do you want the job? And I said, I absolutely would would love to, you know, like, oh my god, I would love the job on guitar. I said, yeah, what do I gotta do? And the only thing that she said was I don't want you smoking wheed and I said, no problem, that's a deal. And I took the job and couldn't couldn't imagine what, you know, what that job would ultimately bring to my life. I mean again, that was and then, of course I had that job for about five months until I felt so guilty about leaving the Lonesome Riverband that I went back. But yeah, she came to me at a bluegrass festival and said, well, actually the first thing she said, she says, hey, I'm not going to be able to have you sing with us today, and I said, okay, cool. And then of course she explained why and asked me if I wanted the job, and I said.
Sure, Okay, when you join Alison Kraus, you know, she's this teenage phenom. Then she's getting some credibility credit she always had credibility, She's getting more outside of the bluegrass world, getting more acclaim. Then she has a hit with baby Now That I've Found You. Then she has a song moments like this on the Twister soundtrack, the original nineteen ninety six Twister. Have that happened? Where was that relative to your tenure?
I was coming on right in the so I jumped on board right in time to be on the Baby Now that I Found You track. That was my entrance into the band. When she was doing the Baby I was, I was on the Twister track, and you know, of course everything from from Baby Now that I Found You on.
Just to stop there for a second. I mean that had been a hit in the sixties by the Foundations, I believe. Did anybody there think that, Wow, this is going to be hit record.
I have never No, it's my short answer. No. No, I mean at least I sure didn't. I mean, you get you get used to kind of putting bluegrass or anything that's even related to it in this little box of you know, something that's set aside from mainstream or you know, popular music, so you never think hit song, you know, like that. When when we did Baby, you know Baby Now that I found I mean I remember again that was one of the things I loved about the band was that they didn't necessarily tried to conform to a bluegrass mold. They just played music with those bluegrass instruments. Didn't matter what the music was, they just played. They had We were a bluegrass oriented, you know, pop band. She played everything, and I remember Baby Now that I found you. First of all, I think that had drums that had a little bit of percussion on it, and I remember I've always that at that time, I had a little stigma with anything. It's like, man, you know, bluegrass music doesn't have to have the drums. Man, I thought, stepping out. I don't know if that's a good idea, if it's a bad idea. But the truth is that every time, you know, she did something different and that was you know, and stretched in the music it was it was exciting for me. So to get to be on that I didn't know. I didn't I didn't even consider whether a song like that could be a hit or could be you know, looked at in popular music, and then you know, boom, the majority kind of grabbed onto it.
Okay, so you joined at that time. Obviously the year two thousand with the Old Brother soundtrack is a turning point for you personally. But in that interim, that five or so years with Alison Krause, tell me about that.
Best time in my life, I mean interesting time in my life. We're talking about now I have kids for the first time in my life. So now I'm juggling.
Well, let's just stop for the second here. Where and when do you meet your wife?
I meet my wife right before I moved to Virginia to join the Lonesome River Band. I met her maybe a month or a month and a half maybe a couple months before I left. I just I had just met her, and then I moved to Virginia.
She was in Vermont.
She was in Vermont. I met her from Vermont.
Okay, Okay, you moved to Virginia. Then what happens with the relationship.
Well, so I moved to Virginia with a with a very good friend of mine. His name is Tag Leon, who I really credit with gosh, maybe my whole career, because I would not have moved to Virginia to join the Lonesome River Band if my buddy hadn't said I'll go with you. Because I told them the circumstances. I said, I'd never be able to afford it. It seems impossible, you know. I was. I wanted to take the job, but I didn't know that I could. And Tag was the one who gave me the the push, said hey, I'll go with you. So my buddy moved down with me to Virginia for the first I think four or five months, which, of course, I maintained a long distance relationship with Alisa, my first wife, and ultimately she moved in when Tag moved out, like a half a year later, and I've you know, she moved to Virginia to be with me, and then we got married a couple of years later.
So you said she was your first wife. How many times you've been married.
Twice? I was twice. I was with Alisa, my first wife, through most most of my career until eleven twelve years ago, and I've been with my new wife now for four years.
To what degree did being a traveling musician negatively impact your first marriage and how does one maintain a steady home life being a traveling musician.
That's a good question, and I don't think there's any one formula. It depends on the two individuals and how they are compatible with each other. I mean, my wife knew what I did when she moved down. She knew I was a musician. It was always music first. But the truth of the matter is as you spend more. And I mean I had years where I was home a lot. I had years where I was not home at all, just so busy, just gone most of the year. I can't imagine what it's like to be the person left at home while someone else is gone. I can't, you know. I've tried to wrap my mind around that, and I just I think it takes a special person to be able to be married to a musician and allow that much of your time with that person to be away. And again, it's easier to be connected now, I think than it is or than it was in that era where now you have FaceTime and you like, you can feel like you're right there with someone anytime you want. I didn't have that with my first marriage, right, So just different. A lot of time away makes it very difficult, you know, in a host of many ways, for different reasons, for different people. You know, I thought things were were fine right up until the day I discovered that they weren't right I was. I was informed one day that it wasn't fine and that it was going to have to you know, And I never I never dreamed, because in my mind I didn't. If I was home three days a year, that's what I was home. I was. I'm still, I'm married, I'm a dad. This is what I do. You just you just take it, however, you know, you just do whatever you can. I think, you know, who knows if I would have if it would have been a different point in time, or in some ways tried harder, or if just been ultimately closer. You know, I got married to a person when I was when I was young, and I don't think either of us necessarily knew what we wanted long term and a person we just both came from relate from upbringings where we wanted someone that would be peaceful and easy to be around. And that was the common ground that I had with my first wife. We just didn't fight, We didn't argue, we didn't we just we just both had the we're going to get along. If there ever was anything that started to be like turmoil or negative, we just moved and shifted gears and went on to something else and just and just lived. And it worked for me and it didn't work for her.
So how many kids do you have in what are they up to?
Now? I have three children of my own and now my my new wife has children, so we have we're a brady bunch. Now she has three and I'm a grandpa with three of mine and then have a step grandchild of my my new wife has a grandchild. So my kids are you know, they're they're all grown and doing their own thing now. I mean they're they're I have my daughter hard to believe is now in her thirties, but they're like they're they're twenty seven, twenty nine, and thirty one. So and let you know, I had them every two years. And both my boys are into golf. They are exceptional golfers and are both in caddy program. They're they're they're both golf caddies. And when they're not when they're not caddy, they're on the course playing. They they're on a golf course every day they can be. My daughter lives in uh in, Kentucky with her husband and three children and is one of the most amazing people I know. I could go on, are you get this? You know it's you know, are your kids off the payroll? My kids have been off the payroll for for so man, My kids were not. I had the three easiest kids that literally asked for nothing, wanted nothing, all went their their own way quickly upon growing. I mean they yeah, my kids have been self sustaining most of most of their lives. They were I had three pretty easy ones. I mean, you know, I went through it and in some situations, you know, I went through with my daughter and at at one point in time, my daughter ended up with UH with a drug problem in her late teens and had to seek some some help. And I, you know, I spent some while a while really afraid I was going to lose her. It broke my heart because I felt like it was a point in time that I wasn't there for her in a way that I could have been. And ultimately she she got some help and and I learned some things along the way, and she is in the minority of numbers of people who have the type of problem that that she had and turn it around and is now one of the most Like went back to school and got her high school She had drop out of high school and went back got her high school degree, then went got a college degree, getting a got a nursing degree. She's, uh, she's a powerhouse. She's she's had three kids, you know, and because of the drug problem. Three natural child no two natural child birth, just twins. She had twins naturally. Her husband and her her husband now and her both really they've they devoted their life now to to rehab and getting other people clean. And uh, he has a corporate job in Kentucky at one of the big rehab centers down there, and right now she's at home still somehow going to school and raising three kids. She's like the powerhouse of women that you could ever find. Exceptional person.
You said that going through her addiction and rehab, you learned a few things. What did you learn about yourself?
You had to go through forty hours as a parent, so she had to do thirty days in this place. Where as a parent and as the person who had to spend like I think it was close to forty five thousand dollars was the check that I had to write for that one. You had to do forty hours of schooling yourself as a parent. And I thought I knew a lot more because I had fought my battle with drugs. Right, I had done everything you could do. Like, Okay, I didn't do heroin. I didn't know what heroin was. That wasn't luckily it was never presented to me. Probably would have done it as a younger person. But when I when I ultimately learned about addiction and learned what what some people have control over others don't have control over, I found that I myself. The lesson for me was I thought I always looked at it as a way where man, if you know it's killing you just say no, right, I just had this this common sense that Okay, enough is enough, you know, if it's hurting you stop it already, right, And it wasn't until I did my my forty hours, you know, in the program, until a doctor put it to me like this, And I wasn't aware of the stat that one out of ten human beings have an attict gene that if they do get addicted to something, they stay addicted to it. Even if they come off it, there's still they're an addict for life. One out of those ten people are unlucky. Right. Well, for me, I fell into the category of someone who could say no. I mean I have been addicted to different things, horrible things, but was able to say enough is enough. I could say no, and a true addict can't say no. And a doctor explained it to me like this. He said, it is it, he says. Try to understand this. If you were a diabetic and you needed insulin to stay alive and someone looked at you and said, damn, it just make more insolent, he said, that's what it's like to be a true addict. You just don't have the ability to say just say no. It's a matter of life or death to an addict in a different way than I saw it, So I never looked at addiction that way. I looked at it as people just making bad choices. And though sometimes it is that, as often as not, it's people introduced to something that they no longer have a power to say no to. And those are the people who need a community around them to help them. And it's it's again I've said for a lifetime that what I love about Bluegrass was the community. It's what saved me. It's where I felt safe. It's the same way through through the rehab process. You know, the community had to change before the habits changed. And she dug her way out of an enormous hole that I'm just so proud of, you know, because she has that. And then in turn, once she started having children, couldn't take any pain medicine to have these have these children, and I just thought, wow, you know, how do you how do you? How do you have twins? How do you have one? You know, forget about twins. So it's it was, you know, it was an experience, but again part of the building block whatever. You know. However, she was being prepared to be the person she needs to be right now. I mean, she's the strongest person that you could probably find. And uh, and I just she just sent me a video too. She just uh she just got baptized, uh a week ago and she sent me a video and I just I just couldn't believe it because she's a stubborn one. And uh, as she put to me, you know, after she says, you know, she says, you know, I'm a stubborn one. She says, it took God a long time with with me. I said, yeah, but uh, she just continues to impress me in every way. I don't know what to say it now. I'm just not bragging about my kiddies, but uh, I have. I have very talented, beautiful, smart kids that hopefully are good people. You know, the what I can say about my kids is all the reports that I have from other peoples who from other people who have met my kids have been glowing. And that's the That's kind of the the biggest thing you could want as a parent is to think that your your kids represent you well and that you know, people see them as good human beings. And I have three precious human beings.
Okay, going back to how we got started, on this, you know, in the middle of nineties. Start to play with Alison. You're doing your thing. She's the queen of her world. How does T Bone Burnette come along? How does the old brother thing come along? And how do you end up singing Men of Constant Sorrow?
So at the time all that was going down, our manager was Denise Stiff, and I think now Denise Stiff she had and T Bone and the Coen Brothers had had hired Denise to help wrangle talent for the for the movie. You know, she kind of she was one of those people who knew everyone, and they discovered her and employed her to find people. And of course, you know Alison Krause, Union Station one of her main client. And and so when we discovered that they were doing a Coen Brothers movie, the whole band Allison Union Station, we're all big Cohen Brothers fans. We thought, man, if there's any way to be any part of this, please let's do it. So we found out they were having auditions and we went as a band to audition. We didn't even know what for. We just went to play them some music and see if there was anything that was going to line up for the movie, and of course that's all I knew at the time, as we were going in as Alison Krause Union Station and see if we could be a part of this movie. And that was exciting just in and of itself. And we did our thing, and we talked for a while and met Joel and Ethan Cohen, and we met T Bone, and you know, everyone seemed to get along and they liked the music and seemed like we were gonna be involved in some way. So our days finished, and I remember as we were walking out, we were literally walking toward the door, and we got just about to it, and Denise, our manager, turned around to T Bone and said, hey, t Bone, have you cast George Clooney's voice yet, because Dan right here she goes. I just thought, she goes, Dan might be a candidate for George's voice. And he said, well, no, we haven't, and they and they looked at me and they said, well do you want to you want to come back maybe tomorrow on audition. Right now, this is this has dropped out of the sky. I had no idea this was coming. I don't think anyone did until she just happened to think of it and said hey, Dan might be a candidate. So they said, would you come back tomorrow? And I said sure. So I go home and I well, I remember leaving. I remember calling my wife and saying, hey, let's you know, I'm going to do this audition. Looks like this voiceover thing, right, And she goes, oh, a voiceover, that's great? What is that? You know? And I explained, well, in this case, it would work out to where you would go to the movies and you're going to see George Clooney on the big screen and you would hear my voice coming out while he's singing. And she pauses and she goes, damn, that's my fantasy, right, So and I've been telling that joke for you know, for for twenty years now, but it seemed so far fetched to me that, you know, going back the next day, I went as much for the ridiculousness of it as as I ever thought that I would actually get this this part, because it was just too weird. I didn't think I sounded anything like George Clooney when I hear him talk, I hear me. I just didn't hear any anything, right, So I decided to go back and I, you know, asked what to do, and they said, well, either come back, and they said, they gave me two choices of songs. They said, you're either that. We either want you to do Rank Stranger or Man of consten Sorrow. They said, you pick one and do it. So I showed up the next day and I picked Man of Constan Sorrow and I did Man of Constant Sorrow for now, who knows. Now, I'm not saying that it would have been different, but what if I had to pick Rank Stranger? Would the song have been different? About to try it out with a different song? Right, So they give me so anyway, So they tell me do one of these songs. So I do Constant Sorrow and they they say, right when I'm finishing. First of all, it would be really you. You would have loved to have been there, because just as I'm finishing, and now, mind you, I'm doing a version much different than what ultimately made it in the movie, I'm doing a version that was higher, faster, less funky. Right, and just as my song finishes in walks the Fairfield four who everyone knows from you know, from the Old Brother soundtrack, and when they walked through the door, literally my guitar was still ringing, and they came in and started singing, all of them when they filled this hall with a song, and they sang the whole song, and when they got done, everyone was clapping and they were hugging each other, and like it was this whole big thing, right, And I've probably dramatized it in my mind now, but it was. It was so fantastic. And they finished up, and I remember t Bone looking at me and said, hey man, great job. We'll call you, which which was how you know this the same words I've heard, you know, after losing a lot of different gigs. You know that's no big it's no big thing. Just you know, it either works or doesn't. So I leave and I'm just, you know, I'm thinking it was ridiculous in the first place that I even't got an audition and went home. And the next day, pretty early in the day, the phone rang and I picked up the phone and it was t Bone Burnett and he said, Dan, he says, well, he said, I've been talking with Joel and Ethan and listen, when we see George Clooney singing, we hear your voice coming out. Do you want this gig? And of course, of course I said yes, and and and then by your uncle man A's. Then then my world change. You know, I had no idea what was what was to come from this? You had asked before? Did I did I sense if now that I found you was a hit song? Not even even less of this because now we're just we're playing weird bluegrass music movie soundtrack. And I've been a part of a couple of different movie soundtracks that again, didn't you know? They're not nothing? Is that big a deal that oh brother became right, So we're doing this this part. And here's the thing that that people don't know, or a lot of people don't know. We we got to be in the movie. So we're we're filming now. While they're filming the movie in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and t Bone comes up to me and says, hey, George wants a chance at singing this song. Would you go into a recording studio we have booked tomorrow and would you play this song with with Clooney. Now, you have to understand the position in life I'm at at this point in time, and what I know and what I don't know, and and where I am all all of a sudden, out of the sky drops this chance to record with George Clooney. That's ten times bigger deal to me than singing the song myself and doing this weird voiceover right. I actually get to go in the studio with the man and record it. So of course I say yes. And the next day we go into the studio and there's George Clooney and I'm in there and we're running over the song. And now George can sing. People you know, say I did it because George Clooney can't sing. That's not true. George Clooney can sing. He likes to be really I've heard him be really hard on himself right about Well, I just looked up and they weren't digging it right. And that's that was not the case at all. If he could have got through the whole thing without making a mistake, he could have sang it. But we tried the song and we're playing it and all of a sudden he makes it, sings the wrong word, says, ah, dang it, let me start it again. So I start the song again and he tries it again, messes up. We try it again and he messes up. Now meanwhile, he's self conscious because you know, he's not sure that he he a singer himself. Whatever reason, right, he walks out of the room, takes his headphones off and looks. He walks up to me, and he says, Dan, he said, we're in here on a day off. He says, I don't even know what we're doing. He says, this is crazy. He says, I'm going to make He said, I'm going to make you a deal. He said, I'll act and you sing. And he stuck his hand out to shake my hand, and I shook his hand, and I'm thinking, I'll act, you sing. I'm thinking, oh, come on, man, Like my whole world was crumbling right in front of me. Now I've now he doesn't now he's not going to do it, and we're back to this thing that you know, who knows how it's going to be now, right, So I call back home and I tell you know, and I'm explaining to my wife at the time. You know, I'm all bummed out. He didn't want to do it, I said, you know, he said, all act you sing. I said, can you imagine right now, skip ahead a couple of years down the road, had he sang that song which he could have no doubt about it, he could have sang it. Had he sang it, I would have made my three hundred and sixty dollars for the session, like I was used to making for a session of just drumming a guitar for a couple. That's good pay for how I was brought up. Had he sang it, I would have made my three hundred and sixty five dollars and never been any none the wiser, and I'd have moved on. But because he said, all act you sing, I got to pay off my house and buy new cars, and then buy another house, and then put my kids through college and do I got to do more from him saying all act you sing than I ever dreamed in a thousand eons a person who played a banjo could ever ever ever do in music. It was it was the life. It was the thing that absolutely changed everything for me. I mean, I never I mean up to that point, you know, I was I was making musicians pay. I mean, I was getting calls to keep my you know, I was having to wire money to keep my lights on. My lights would get turned off, you know, every couple of months. It seemed right, all of a sudden, my house is paid off, we have new cars, there's money in the bank, no credit card bills, no any It was the life life changer of life changers. You couldn't I couldn't imagine. And then on the spiritual side, it it made me rethink how I listened to music in the first place, because I was not happy with how it had to be recorded. It was one take, there were no fixes. If you did something wrong, you just had to do the song over. It was just there was no I was used to technology. Man, you could go on a stead. Was the beauty of a recording studio is you get to capture the best, very best of your best and if it's not you can do it again. And if this line isn't the best, well you can do that, like you can make a really great representation of what you're able to do in a recording studio. And old brother Art Thou was the complete opposite. It was organic. It had to be one take, one microphone, No, there was no headphones, there was no nothing. Man, You just sat down, literally, I was sitting down playing in that stupid can. Man. It was the weirdest thing for me. It was not I was not satisfied with my performance, but to say, to put it the best way I can. When I was done, I couldn't believe they wouldn't let me go in and fix any lines, or that it had to be one take. I would have much rather. I would have much rather done it in a different in a different way. And then after I learned what the magic of that whole project was, it was it was the beauty of what music actually is and how it's a how why live music is so great, and it's something I've always been an advocate for. I mean, I've always loved live music. But after Old Brother Yeah changed the way I listened to music too. Didn't just change my life financially, changed my life spiritually the way I went after music from that point forward.
Okay, just to dial down on this for one second. You literally only sang the song once or you did multiple versions of the song from beginning to end.
Oh. I sat in that studio and sang till I was horses. I could be I probably did the song thirty times or more front to back, and then I think we kept the first or second take when it was after I did it, like literally, that's you know, studios. I sat and I did it over and over. And this is the thing, this is what was killing me was I had so many performances that were well, if look, if I just go fix the line that I messed up, that's the perfect performance, right, And it was like, no, no, no, this is this has to be one take pure, had to be organic like this is. And this is a credit to the Cohens into t Bone all the music. I mean, they made sure that instruments we played that we recorded with the microphones that we used. They made sure that everything was that era. We recorded in microphones of that era, with instruments of that era, and we did it one time through from beginning to end, because that's the way they did it in that era.
Okay, T Bone is a legendary producer. As I say, this is sort of a real strip down recording thing. But did he do anything as a producer that direct you or give you insight that change your performance?
This was absolutely I mean for starters. I mean there were times where when I found myself wondering what is he doing? Because these people are just in there doing whatever they want to do. Like when we did like some of the stuff that we played. He just threw us into a room and said play. He didn't say do this, do this, He didn't, you know, He just said play and we played. And I think part of his genius is understanding what chemistry works, and if it's working, just let it do its thing. If it's not working, then you might have to steer a little bit. And when it came down to the version that I did, particularly the solo version where it was just the guitar and the voice of Manecon's sorrow, there were so many directions. In fact, I had never had to be so conscious of a visual while I played up until that point. Like it was. They kept telling me, you have to understand, if you sing into this can and you knock him dead, you're going to make fifty dollars. Now, this is way back when you're going to make like you're going to be rich. Now. They said, you're hungry. They said, you just stole a chicken so you could eat. You're that hungry. You're so hungry, you just stole a chicken. They said, you just sold your soul to the devil. Your fingers are flying. They said, you're you're trying to play rock and roll, but it hasn't been invented yet. You're just you're trying to knock it so far out of the part. You're just trying to blow them away. Now play a man a consasar And it was you know, it was it was. It was strange. There was so much direction of what was going on visually while that was going down that. Yeah, it was an interesting process to see how they go about making something fit a movie. You know that was because that that that was a that was a strange one. It They made it in such a way where it stood on its own, just as music, but that soundtrack was all very specific to the scenes that they were playing behind.
Okay, movies are a long detailed process. You seing the stuff how long til the movie comes out? And listen, people, whenever you're involved in a movie, people are super positive and frequently most times the movie is not successful. So what was your experience of the movie actually being released?
So they first announced that they were gonna let us let us see the movie in Nashville, everyone who worked on at all, the people who performed and their families, and they were gonna have a private showing and at the Bellcourt Theater here in Nashville, and so we of course got ready to go see this movie, and we knew it was a big deal and it's a Coen Brothers and I had no idea what to expect, even though I had seen some of the script and read several of the scenes and you know, and been involved in shooting of some of it. Boy, when you're there shooting the movie and you're not actually looking back on the camera to see what they filmed, you still don't have any idea of us going. And I remember sitting down to the movie and it blew like it blew me away. Like though, first of all, I'm a huge Coen Brothers fan, and I got you know, I had a lot of schooling on how it was tied to the Odyssey, you know, going in, so I got a lot of this. Like, the movie to me was fantastic. Right. So I'm sitting there loving the movie, and then comes the song and I hear my voice right come out, and I, for lack of a better way to describe, I've never been more embarrassed in my life. I sunk down in my seat. I sunk down in my seat, and I got I tried to disappear like I was trying as hard as I could to implode and just be and just to to it, just to a singular nothing. It was the strangest I can't hard to explain. I was like it was embarrassing and of course everyone collapsed and everyone's looking and every you know, and it's a big it's a big to do, and it was how was the first time I'd had quite that much attention, right, And it was it's it's weird to be the the the person everyone's looking at, you know, because at this point I've had a career with Alison and I was really good at knowing how to stand beside that the person everyone's looking at. That's an easier job supporting role, was what I felt like. I was, you know, tailored for now to be the guy. You know, it was uncomfortable to just to For no better way to explain it, it was it was extremely uh nerve wracking in the first you know, the first especially the first year, you know, following then after you get that much attention, you know, after after a little while that that attend you know, you you it doesn't feel as strange, it doesn't feel as you know, there there is now there is no embarrassing, you know, now it's pure joy, like the attention from old Brother that I get because it's still now, it's twenty five years later, and when I do Constant Sorrow Live, the cell phones still come out. You just see everyone responded like it's it's amazing. And to think that you get to be a part of everyone's life like that, I mean, you know, it's it's it turned from embarrassment when I first started to pure joy when I when I you know, hear it and see it. Now it's it's come around to where it's you know, the fascination. You know, it's still fascinating, and the fascination continues with people. I mean, I still do interviews about Oh Brother. You know, there's not too many things you can say. Twenty five years later, it's still still on the platform, and Oh Brother is kind of one of those things.
Okay, the movie's going to be released. I remember going on Napster or whatever downloading your song. This is a song many people have sung, Rod Stewart saying it, I'm pretty sure, Bob Dylan saying it, etc. Yours is a one listen version, Okay, and it's really amazing and it it was successful. Was there any concept of you and the people you work with saying this is gigantically successful, let's follow it up.
Man. So yes, there was of course a thought of of that, and I was I was approached to UH to potentially do a solo record, you know after after that. Now we have to go back and look at where I was at this point in time, and Uh, I had just done I just signed on to do a record with this this record label that my friend Tim Austin and and ex bandmate. He was the guy who ran the Lonesome River band that I played with for those years and UH, and I was scheduled slated to do a record for him, and t Bone asked if I wanted to do some sort of a project, you know after you know, this thing and I and I had to tell him. I said, well, I'm doing this other bluegrass record, you know, I've got to do. And he goes, well, he goes, he goes. It's kind of like, you know, if you're ever going to do anything, you know, let's we either need to do it or you know, if you want to do something else, well then whatever. So I go to you know, I go to Tim and I remember talking to talking to him at the time, saying, Hey, I've got a chance to do this thing with with T Bone, and he goes, Man, he goes, you got to be kidding. He goes, you can't. You can't let me down on this record. I can't have this record. This is this is gonna end. He goes, My label will fold if you don't do this record. He goes, especially now right. So in my mind, now I go back. If if I wanted to be that guy, I could have said, sorry, sue me, whatever you got to do. I got to do that, you know, I got to take advantage of this. Right. Had I not had I not been with Alison Krause and Union Station, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have taken the opportunity to follow that up with whatever T Bone wanted to do. I mean, if he would have said, hey, I want you to do you know this, this way, this, this way, let's just try it, I would have done anything to try it. Right. But I was and I don't know how to really even get people to understand I wasn't just content. I was so content with the job that I had with Alison in Union station that I was even uncomfortable stepping outside of the you know, I was uncomfortable at that point stepping into a spotlight being that guy that everyone was looking at. I thought it was just such an awesome thing that now, of course, after old Brother, even though the Alison job was great before Old Brother, well it was you know, multi multi times greater. After the work picked up, the prices went on, I mean, everything was better. So when it came right down to it, it was just more important to me to see if I couldn't, you know, help my buddy do what do what he needed to do with his mission. And at the end of the day, when I wait, everything in the basket, the only thing that really mattered to me was I was playing with Alison in Union Station, and I've got the greatest job that I you know, what you could look at as a lottery winning type of job, you know, like that was I had the job of jobs. I didn't really have to do anything solo. It wasn't until so many, so many years after that I really found any DESI you know, like I don't know in some ways, I guess late Bloomer. I mean now that I'm doing solo now, you know, I don't see how I I ever conceded to to doing anything else like I love, I love what I do now. It's and when I had the opportunity to, I just didn't see it. I just wanted to be a bandmate. I wanted to step away from that spotlight. It didn't it didn't appeal to me in a way that made me want to want to try to follow it up. But there was an opportunity way back when.
Yeah, okay, talking about your greatest kids, how'd you end up working with a vichy.
Oh? Getting to so this one, this was another one that that stepped out of left field. I never saw coming. I couldn't have imagined how this would profoundly change my life because this one really this I mean, you know, hey, brother arguably is a bigger hit. Well no, not arguably, I mean it's statistically a such so much of a bigger hit than than Man of consa Sorrow, it's not even funny. I get a call from my assistant one day who says, hey, we just got a reach out from this DJ who wants to know if you will sing a song on his record, And I said, okay, what goes you know he does d M, and I had to ask what EDM was. I did not know what the term ed M stood for. She she tells me electronic dance mix, you know this stuff in clubs that goes and I laughed and I was like, oh my gosh, okay. I said, how about uh, how about thank you but no thank you? This This was my answer just it was just flat I thank you but no thank you. Those are my words. And being the quality person that she is in a shout out to Shelley for this one. Thank you Shelley Calabresi for this one. H She goes, would you like to hear it before we give an official no thank you? Right? So I think, well, sures, you know, if send me the song, that's that's that's fine whatever. So she goes, okay, that's She goes, I figured you would say no thanks, but you know, let's listen to it and then, you know, then we'll give an official no thank you. So she's sending me the song and all I know is she's sending me this song and I and I she told me a vichy, right, So I go through my mind and I think, who do I you know? Who in my world would know this this cat right, And my daughter really was the one who popped into my mind because my girl at the time was nineteen and she listened to everything. I mean she would she would listen. She would follow up a CDC with mel Tormae. I mean she would listen. She listened to the whole spectrum of music. So I texted her right really quickly. Well, because I wanted a quick response, I figured I would text her instead of calling her. You know, she was a teenager. They'll respond to a text immediately. If you call them, they won't pick it up anyway. So I text her. I said, hey, you ever heard of this guy a EGI? And she responds immediately, she goes sweetish DJ. He's a genius. He's probably my favorite artist. Why when I'm thinking, oh wow, so I said, I type up, I think he wants me to do a song on his next record. And I see the bubbles coming up. You know that she's responding to my text and it's one word bullshit. This is what And I can't believe it's my little girl right now in my mind, my little halo wearing, cherub cheeked little angel of a daughter. You know, is cussing at me online. So now I'm thinking, okay, how do I respond to this? What do you what do you know? What are you saying? And as I'm texting now, the phone rings and it's her and I answer. I go hello. She goes, Dad, are you messing with me? Because if you're messing with me, I'm not in a place right now where I can't even handle it. Because she started going higher and faster. She she she went nuts on me, ending up and saying, if this is real, if this is actually happening, and this is real, if this is an offer and you don't do it, I'm out. That's what she says. And I'm thinking to myself, you live on your own. I'm not paying your bills. You're already What do you mean? I said, what do you so? What do you mean you're out? And she goes, just try me, So I thought, wow, this is serious. Just then, as she's saying just try me, my phone buzzes and it's the song that just showed up from my assistant. So I tell her, let me let you go. I got to listen to this song. It just just showed up. I'll let you know how it turns out she goes, oh my god, it doesn't matter what it is to it. So I hang up and I listened to the song. Now, the song is not the big fantastic version everyone knows, you know. The demo of the song was just a guitar. It was two strings on a guitar, just going boo dud do do do do d right, and a vocalist sang the song I for. I don't know how else to put it. I loved it right. It was the right key for me, it was the right tempo for me. The message was was that bringing people to get like everything about that song I did, like I love Now in my mind, I'm envisioning how it sounds to me, like everything I hear upstairs in this this brain of mind, you know, has a banjo in it, right, so I'm hearing like kind of the the bluegrass version. I ultimately ended up doing myself right, but I I can hear myself doing it. So I called back my assistant and I tell her, hey, listen, I said, I just listened to the song. I said, I don't know how to say this, but I love it. It's killer. I said, let's do it. I said, listen. What's the big deal? I said in I said, listen, we do the song. Who cares? No one ever hears it? So what we've done it, it'll make my daughter happy, right, This is all I'm thinking. I'm thinking, we'll do this song, no one will ever hear it, and I'll just move on. And then I do this song. He doesn't have any version of it, he says, can you just do it to a click track? So I sang the song with no music. I just stood in the studio and I took my guitar and I hit a note being I don't even know if I used the guitar. I think you might have hit a note on the piano. Hit the geno, he said, here's the note, here's it is. So I hit the genoe and I just started singing it right to a click And I sang the song and sent it away to Los Angeles where a Vichy was. And you know, i'd never met the man. I just sent him a vocal across the air waves skip ahead, just like not many weeks later, not many weeks like just like a like. A couple few months later, that song was number one in sixteen different countries at the same time. It was a global smash that I couldn't imagine and I and I was unaware of it because I really don't listen to radio. I don't listen to anything. Right. I just got a call from my buddy one day and my buddy caused me. He says Ti Minsky. He goes, man, you got to hear what's going on. He goes, someone's out there. Someone is ripping you off. And I said, what they said? Someone is ripping you off. There's this dude out there and it's it's like it's just like edm stuff. He says, but they are copying you to a t. They said, it's one hundred percent you know, it's one hundred percent a Dan to Minsky rip off. And I said, do you mean a song called Hey Brother? And he goes yeah, And I said, dude, that's me. He goes, how can that be you? He goes, your name's not on anything? And I said, well, I was worked for hire. You know, correct my name. You won't find my name on it. If you look up any of their stuff, you don't see Dan Tominsky. Well turns out I gotta I gotta look back. That's that's one of the biggest things I've ever you talk about the one that got away. If my name could have been attached to that, I can't even imagine what the sound skin. I'm like I it would have dwarfed anything, you know, old brother Wawreth I ever did. It was ridiculous. But instead, you know, that's how I got a one time payment, which was, you know, wonderful. At the time, I thought, you know, great, and then you know, later on I got a writing deal in My publisher said do you have any idea how much money that song made? And he gave me a quick rundown, and it was. It was embarrassing, man. It was a lot of zero's, a lot of commas. That song was was absolutely the most fantastic thing to be a part of in it And though you know I didn't get rich from that one in particular, what it led what it led to in my life, man, And I wouldn't have without it, period. I just simply wouldn't have what I have now. Without it, I wouldn't have had the courage to write the songs that ultimately led to the Southern Gothic record. I wouldn't have had the courage to write any bluegrass stuff, which have has turned into everything that I'm about now. So you know that that getting to work with with Tim Bergling, who the world knows as avicy that was. That was one of the biggest things I could have ever been involved with, and I am so I'm so thankful for the opportunity to get to be involved in that one because it's it's just it's led to an uncountable well of things I wouldn't have without it.
So presently, what's your deal with solo and Alison Grause?
Uh oh, I am no longer a member of Alison Krause Union Station. They will be touring and putting out some music and it will just be with with someone different than than myself. I'm doing Dan Tominsky. I have got the solo career machine started and couldn't imagine veering away from it. It's taken me, it's taken me fifty plus years now to get to steer this ship, and I can't. I can't lose my grip.
You're a very loyal guy. There are two very big stories that you told with loyalty. Ay, how hard was the decision to leave Union Station? And it's like I was talking to Jerry Douglass. He can come and go. Why couldn't you come and go?
I could come and go. There there were a lot of circumstances that probably led up to I mean, you know, Jerry has a different situation than I have to be able to to come and go. I mean, I guess I if I wanted to, I think I I mean, well, no, I know I could have ided, you know I had. I made this decision honestly, more last minute than I than I ever thought I would. I didn't. I didn't feel at first when it was first proposed to come back and they were gonna, you know, Allison was gonna have Union you know, do another Union station thing. I was first shocked. I I never I I really thought it was done. I mean, it had been eight eight plus years since, you know, since there was any consideration of anything. So when I first hearted, I didn't. I couldn't believe, you know, that she wanted to do something. So I had to consider it. And my first thoughts were, and I'm and I'm gonna play the loyalty card. It felt like it was something that I had to do. I couldn't see myself saying no, because I felt like there was a world of fans, and there was a band of people, and there was there were too many things that that, you know, too many people. I would be letting down if I didn't do it. And I said, you know, let's you know, let's let's do whatever whatever we're going to do. And I got you know, we spent our time together, we worked up songs. There was I was actually going to do a bunch of probably sing more songs than I would have in the past, on this new thing they were about to put out, and in the process, somewhere in the middle, I couldn't do it. Somewhere somewhere in the middle, I felt like I was letting go of my identity. And it's kind of hard to put in words. I think the best way I could explain it is, I've spent my lifetime being other people's versions of myself. I was first, you know what, I only sang in the first place so I could accent my brother, you know, I was his version of what he needed. Then I joined the Lonesome River Band, and I never got to do what I wanted to do. With the Lonesome River Band, I did whatever they needed me to do, and that was fantastic, So I did it. Then I joined Alison Krause and Union Station, which, don't get me wrong, I loved every aspect of it, but I was what she needed me to be. I wasn't still playing what I wanted to play in the band, you know, I had to adapt and be someone else's version of myself. And I feel like, for the first time in my life, and at this point, I get to be my version of myself for the better or for the worse. When people hear what I'm doing currently, they get decisions that I am making about myself versus decisions someone else was making. And if it came down to doing another Alison Krause project, I didn't feel like I had the control to be me I was, you know, I didn't. I didn't want to be steered as much as I was having to be steered with, whether it be song selection, how I sang those songs, the there you know, a lot of a lot of particulars. I mean, I reached a point in my career where I get to steer the ship and I feel like if I let go of that, I won't get it back, and I'm not willing to do that I'm gonna stick with the solo.
Okay, before we wrap it up. How good a golfer are.
You depends who I'm golfing against. There are some people I can whip handily. There are some people I would never bet a nickel against. Good as a relative term when it comes to that game. Uh, the game of golf is one of the hardest games that I've ever I've ever took up. And some people would say I'm a very good golfer, and then some people would say, you know, he's a hack. Just depends on who I'm playing next to. Golf took up my foosball void, you know, when I stopped playing foosball in nineteen eighty nine and all through the nineties, and you know, I took up golf kind of fill that void. So I have that OCD personality to where anything I spend my time doing, if I'm not going to be able to do it well, I'm probably not going to do it at all. So golf was the same I I ate, you know, Drank slapt everything was was golf for a for a period of time, and I think at one point in time golf died just had me ranked as the number five musician golfer in the country. Now that being said, there are a bunch of musicians that I would never bet a nickel against because there's a lot of good golfers out there. But Uh, at one time I could hold my own. Now I play a lot more for fun than I do for UH. If I'm serious about anything I play anymore, it's foosball, not golf.
Okay, when did you take up golf?
Uh? When I moved to Virginia. When I when I moved away from home, when I let foosball go, literally, I that's I. I made a switch because I found a buddy of mine that I moved to Virginia with is Uh is a golf pro, Tag Leon. I got to give Tag a shout out. He's now the head golf pro at at in Southern Pines, North Carolina, at Talamore Golf and Resort. He has a fantastic facility down there. People should go check out Talamore. But Tag moved down with me, and I had a roommate that was a golfer, and I, you know, I remember seeing his clubs and he had a bunch of golf shoes. I remember, like I thought, thought to myself, who would have that many pairs of shoes? It was. It was blew my mind right because he had like eight pairs of golf shoes. And anyway, we went out one day and he was like, yeah, give it a try, and I remember taking a I was big into baseball, right. I wanted to be a baseball player so I could hit it hard. But I was a horrible golfer. But I took it up and I started going to the driving range for fun, and before you knew it, I was trying to keep a score and realized how bad I was, and then decided I was going to have to really get serious in practice. And you know, I spent as here. I got to thank old brother. You know that along with being able to take care of my house payments and everything else that I came along with that, I was able to join a country club and have a place for my family to hang out and play. And I have my two boys. They're definitely into golf right now. Because of you know, it's my fault. I had them around the golf course all while they were growing up, and now they're both I have two fantastic golfers for boys. They're both in the plus handicaps there. They can quit me so easy. They could. They could either one of them could beat me with one hand. And I can't stand it because I'm so competitive. But you know, golf, I took up golf when probably nineteen ninety ish.
Okay, your peak, How much were you playing and do you play at all?
Now? My peak, I played seven days a week. I played every single day, and I practiced before and after I played. I mean I played every day. And when I did that, I played most days. I mean I played minimum five days a week. Or let's just say every day that I was home. Every day that I was home, I played golf all through my kids going to school. The routine was I would drop them off at school, go play golf all while they were in school, stand on the driving range and hit balls until it was time to pick them up, Go pick them up, and then I was home. So yeah, I played golf every day. You know. In my peak my best scores, I've shot a sixty seven was my best score. I shot a couple of sixty nine's and I never got down to a scratch. I was a one handicap was my best I got to be a a one handicap, where my kids one of them's a plus four, one of them's a plus six. It's grotesque what they do with the game. But I played a lot when I played, now not nearly as much I do not. I enjoy the game so much more now than I enjoyed it when I was trying to be good at it, because, like I said, the OCD thing, I couldn't enjoy it for trying to always improve. And if you're trying, really trying to improve, you simultaneously or frustrated with your performance, you kind of have. You know, improvement comes with not being satisfied with where you're at. So I've taken a shift to the point where I really enjoy playing the game, don't worry about a score as much. Still can probably shoot a goods. You know, I'm my best score of the year. My last year, I shot seventy two one time, so I was one over par. That was my best score of the year. I shot close to par once. I'm like, I'm captain seventy eight. I shoot a lot of seventy eight, so that seems to be my my go to number. I can play well, I shoot seventy eight. I play like crap. I shoot seventy eight. It's my number.
Did you take lessons to learn how to play golf?
No, I've never taken lessons to learn how to do anything. And again I would say the same thing to golfers. If you are starting out the game, take a couple early lessons, because one of the things that really did hurt me in my golf game is I ingrained a few really bad habits early on that I carried over from baseball that really made me struggle with golf. I had to unlearn a few things that I taught myself that I could have easily avoided had I taken some early lessons. So I don't think you necessarily have to take lessons the whole time you play, unless you're doing it as a profession. But to get the fundamentals down early on so that you can do so that you can practice correctly from the start, I think is a huge bonus. And I would recommend it to anyone that, even if they don't think they need lessons, go ahead and take that lesson and then decide after if you if you want to use that or not.
Okay, how often do you play now.
Golf. You know, my wife likes to play golf now, so I try to get out once a week, you know, if I if I can. I mean, I'm more fair weather now, if it's if it's cold, or if it's windy, or if I have a hangnail, or if you know, whatever my TV reception isn't good, whatever it is, you know, anything will keep me from playing now. You know, it's got to be all the conditions have to be right. But if the weather's nice and and I have somebody who's willing, I'll still go out and knock it around. I mean, I still love the game. I've been trying to get into it a little bit more as of late. So this this year, I plan on playing more golf than I played last year because I'm I'm determined to get you know, a little bit. You know, it's it's it's fun for me now, but it's not as fun if I'm nowhere near as good as I could be. So I'm gonna practice a little bit this year and try to find that happy balance where I can, you know, play a little more and still have fun with it.
Okay, you're playing golf. What's the status of your career now, how much you're working, how much do you want to work, and any specific goals at this point.
Well, I still want to work. I mean I'm I'm not you know, I'm at the point now to where well, well, you know, heck, I have to work. I mean, you know, I still got to keep these lights. I still got to keep the light bol paid. So I have to work. Fortunately for me, I love my work. So it's it's it's it's been a it's it's kind of been a nice situation to be able to to go after something that you enjoy doing. I mean, I've never felt like I've worked ever. I mean I've I've traveled to play music. I mean traveling that's the hardest thing that I do. And as far as how much do I want to travel, you know, if I play, if I play fifty, you know, or to sixty dates a year, that is that that's like my high end. That's as much as I would want to go. I mean, I I don't like traveling like I once did. I've said this for a while now. I have played for a long time. I have played for free. I only get paid to travel. You pay me to travel and I'll play for you for free. That's how it works anymore. And uh, I don't want to stay out on the road. I don't want to. I mean, I'm I enjoy my home life. I enjoy my my wife, I enjoy playing golf. I'd like to spend a little more time. I'm, you know, enjoying my my Uh, how do how do I put it? I'm I'm I'm not you know, I'm not anywhere close to giving up yet, but I'm I've started the back nine, so I'm trying to ease into it.
Well, I mean, you ultimately had two gigantic successes. Okay, you're doing what you're doing. You gotta work, you got to keep the lights on in the back of your mind everything, and well, you know, i'd like to get back to that spotlight before I go here.
Well, I mean this is the I mean, at the at this point, I'm able to you know, it's I'm finding I'm finally and I say finally because i haven't been for a bulk of my career, but I'm finally happy in in the center portion of that stage. Like I I'm enjoying what I get to do now versus what I've done in the past. I mean, I'm I've talking to an audience, getting to tell jokes, getting to steer if you will. Man, it was an acquired taste for me. It wasn't something I started out loving, but once I got a taste for it, I can't see myself ever doing anything else. I mean, I am a I'm a I'm an entertainer. I mean I want to be on that stage. I want to play for the people. I mean again, traveling isn't as easy as it once was. I don't want to I don't want to try to do one hundred dates a year, you know, But I want to make sure that I do dates that you know. I want to make sure that I get to go out and connect with people, because at this stage of the game, when I get to connect to an audience, it's the happiest I can be in the music arena. And I don't see myself ever stopping that.
Well, Dan, you tell a great story. You've filled in a lot of details that I've always had questions about. I want to thank you for taking this time with my audience.
Oh my gosh, listen, I don't know if I've done if I've done all that. But but I have enjoyed your time and uh and it is get the fun, you know. It's fun to get to talk about the things at length that you don't necessarily get to touch on in other formats. So I really appreciate what you do, and I hope we can do it again sometime.
Absolutely, it's a lot of stuff we haven't covered, but we've come to the end of the feeling we've known for today till next time. This is Bob left six
