SHOW DESCRIPTION

Jerry Douglas has played on more than 1,600 albums across virtually every American musical genre — and he's still counting. The 16-time Grammy winner, Dobro master, and Alison Krauss and Union Station anchor sits down with Paul Wolf ahead of his performance at the National Folk Festival, November 13–15 in Jackson, Mississippi.

In this conversation, Jerry talks about the through line across a half-century career, adapting to the session, painting around the song, and showing up ready for whatever lands in front of you. He reflects on the Dobro's journey from Hawaiian parlors to bluegrass stages, the push-and-pull between tradition and reinvention, and why Jackson felt like an obvious choice for the NCTA's 83rd edition of the festival. He also discusses his latest album, The Set, his first solo release in seven years, and what it means to finally get on a stage in a city he calls a tent pole of American music.

TRANSCRIPT

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INTRO

Paul

Jerry Douglas says playing for Jackson feels like stepping up to the Ryman — one of those tent poles that holds the whole thing up. He's a 16-time Grammy winner who has recorded on more than 1,600 albums across virtually every genre, and the man who helped redefine what a Dobro could do. Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places, and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today's show, we're sitting down with Jerry Douglas — Alison Krauss and Union Station anchor and board member of the National Council for the Traditional Arts — ahead of his performance at the National Folk Festival, November 13th through 15th in Jackson. His latest album, The Set, his first solo release in seven years, captures exactly what makes him irreplaceable: a player who's always adapting, and always home.

INTERVIEW

Paul

Welcome, Jerry Douglas, to Soul Sessions.

Jerry

Thank you very much. It's a really great pleasure to be here.

Jerry Douglas on the Through Line of 1,600 Albums

Paul

We're so happy that you'll be in Jackson in November for the National Folk Festival, the 83rd edition, the second year of Jackson's residency out of three years. I want to start by asking you about your musical career. You've played on over 1,600 albums across virtually every American musical genre, from bluegrass to country to rock to jazz, even Celtic music. So when you look back at that body of work, is there a through line you see there? Is there something that you're consistently chasing with your music?

Jerry

Well, I'm always trying to adapt to a situation is what I seem to be doing. I learned that in recording in the studio — every day going in and doing a three-hour session and moving on to the next one and then to the next one. In Nashville it's set up as ten to one, two to five, and then the six o'clock guys come in.

I think the through line is just that — me adapting to situations. And you get really good at that in the studio when things are thrown at you fast and you have to come up with something coherent and something that will fit into the song. I think of it all as like painting, so we're sort of painting around a subject and whatever the subject matter is of the song. There are so many things you think about while you're recording. But I've also come back in and replaced my fair share of saxophones on country records that thought they were too far from country. So bring Jerry in on the Dobro and we'll bring it back toward country a little bit. But I've been really lucky in the artists that I got to play with and the labels that I've been hooked up with, like Rounder and Sugar Hill, and all the majors as well. But the independents have been pretty much the lifeblood of what I do. It's just been a nice career of playing with really nice people and playing good music of all kinds.

People have asked if there were any genre that I hadn't played in and I would say rap, because I hadn't. I felt like I'd done just about everything else. And then along came a band called Gangsta Grass. It was two rappers, Banjo — the fellow that did all the music for Justified on the TV series — he was sort of the leader of the band, and there was a fiddle player and a banjo player, and this thing just churned, just churned. It was relentless. It was called The Only Way Out Is Through. And I was on their first single that they released. So I checked the big box of rap. I checked that box off. So now I'm waiting for the next one, whatever that is.

Paul

It's coming, right? Somebody else is gonna ask you to play on a hip hop record.

Jerry

It's coming. Yeah, I played on a lot of crazy stuff during COVID because everybody knew that every musician in the world was sitting still — no one was going anywhere. So I had played on records from the Bob Dylan of Venezuela and all kinds of people who had reached out who would normally not reach out for somebody like me.

The Instrument That Changed American Music

Paul

Jerry, your instrument of choice is one called the Dobro. And people that aren't familiar with that — it's like a lap steel, it looks like an acoustic guitar, but it's a resonator. It has this kind of steel guitar sound. Was there a moment early in your career when you realized you weren't just playing the Dobro, that you actually were going to reinvent that instrument?

Jerry

Well, I'd never thought of it that way. But the Dobro is the forerunner of the steel guitar and of the lap steel and then the pedal steel guitar. It was created by five Czechoslovakian brothers in the late nineteen twenties in, of all places, California, where they had emigrated to. And their last name was Dopiera. So the Dopiera brothers became Dobro. And it was synonymous with Hawaiian music for the longest time. And then blues artists started finding it. It was a guitar that was equal to the volume of their voice. So it made it easier to compete — to go ahead and sing out and not cover their guitar so much because this thing could put out some volume.

It found its way into country music and into bluegrass music through Josh Graves, who was the guy that I copied. He played with Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and the Foggy Mountain Boys. And I'd wake up every morning listening to him on my stereo at home. Before I'd go to school, my dad would go off to the steel mill where he worked. We would hear some Flatt and Scruggs every morning.

One Foot in Bluegrass That Never Comes Out

Paul

You've built multiple musical worlds — Alison Krauss and Union Station, the Earls of Leicester, Transatlantic Sessions, and the Jerry Douglas Band. You once told CBS's Anthony Mason that the sound of Alison Krauss and Union Station is one foot in bluegrass that never comes out. Is that the anchor — that no matter how far the music goes, there's always something that keeps it rooted?

Jerry

I think it is bluegrass that keeps us rooted. We all come from that crop of players, and that lean that way, but it allows us to bring in other genres of music to mix with the bluegrass. We know it by heart, but it's the other things that give us a little more broad appeal, maybe.

To audiences where we don't play just straight bluegrass all the time — but we could if it was demanded of us. We prefer to mix in, you know, there are so many different genres mixed into the music that we play and different ways of thinking about it. I think about it as it's jazz in a lot of ways too — you start with the head of the tune and you move through the tune with different solos and you always come back to the head. So we dabble in a lot of different things throughout a show. We put our toe in, but our foot never comes out of bluegrass. I guess I could say that again.

Bringing the National Folk Festival to Jackson

Paul

If you're just joining us, we are with Jerry Douglas, world-renowned Dobro player who will play at the National Folk Festival, the 83rd edition, in Jackson, Mississippi, November 13th through 15th. Jerry, you serve on the board of directors for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the organization that produces this folk festival. How did that relationship start? And how has your role evolved from performer to someone helping to guide the organization's mission?

Jerry

Well, I started out with the NCTA by forming a real great relationship with my friend Joe Wilson, who was doing the groundwork for NCTA for many, many years and was the chief officer there. Watching him — we went around the world once. I was playing with the Whites, which was a country bluegrass act, and Ricky Skaggs was on it as well, and D.L. Menard from Louisiana, and John Jackson, a blues player from Piedmont, over in Virginia. We were in Thailand, we went to Chiang Mai, and Joe went to Cambodia and got the Khmer Rouge Ballet Company out of there, out of a refugee camp, and flew them to Washington, D.C.

We always figured that Joe was in the CIA or something, but no, he was just a guy who was helping another musical genre — some people who were in harm's way — getting them out of there. My relationship with NCTA started with Joe and went through Julia Olin and everybody that's been there, and a lot of musicians have gone through there as people who would stand up for the NCTA.

And I just think it's a wonderful thing. They bring this festival to a different city every three years. I've played the one in Lowell, Massachusetts, the one in Richmond, Virginia, and Bangor, Maine, and Butte, Montana, and now in Jackson — where they have a chance to get this festival going in their town. The NCTA will help them with it for three years and then it's theirs. Then they hand it off and they have this festival that they can do every year, with all of its pieces in place. And it helps the town, it helps the city. That's why I love the NCTA — it doesn't have any borders. It's just music that happens within the United States and it's different cultures. It supports basket weaving, indigenous arts, which are hard to find and are leaving us at great rates. But they stand up and support people like that. And they supported me — in 2006 I was a fellow from the honors and the endowment. And it does some really great things for people all over the country.

Paul

Folk means different things to different people. So what does keeping it alive mean to you? Not as a philosophy, but as something you actually do.

Jerry

Well, it keeps my music alive in one way. The roots of my music probably came over from Scotland and Ireland and England and found its way through Appalachia and into my home. And I want to promote something like that. I want everyone to have that opportunity to hear all of these different kinds of music.

At the festival, people will have a chance to go there and see things that they would normally not see at a festival — all these different kinds of music, all rooted in American music. Native American, French Canadian, French Cajun music, Zydeco, blues, bluegrass — they're all American music. And you put in all the people who aren't playing music but whose work the NCTA is protecting. It may be basket weaving, it may be something totally that you didn't think of, but it's an endangered species of some kind. It gives them a foot up to keeping their art alive. And that's what we're all about is keeping arts alive.

Protecting Tradition While Pushing the Envelope

Paul

You use the term endangered species. And so I'm going to ask you — there always seems to be a tension between preservation and evolution with traditions. Is it your job to protect the form or to push it forward?

Jerry

It's both. I've always pushed the envelope, and if I hadn't I wouldn't have been able to play with all these different amazing musicians that I have — from John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussein to James Taylor and all of these different people. I see that my job is to push the envelope while respecting the tradition.

Because I'm a traditional guy at heart, but I just can't leave it alone. I'm always trying to make it better or add something to it, something they didn't think of then. I might be able to raise an opportunity for someone else.

Paul

The National Folk Festival comes to Jackson, Mississippi, November 13th through 15th. Jerry, for somebody who's never been to the National Folk Festival, how would you describe it — what it actually is?

Jerry

It's a total family affair. It's something you could bring your kids to, or just come and be curious and check out the different stages — the dance stages, the arts and crafts places — and not just the music on the main stage, but things in the periphery. It wakes you up to a lot of new ideas and things you'd never thought of before that are happening right there in your town. They've been there forever, but they were just under the surface and maybe you didn't know about them. It's a good place for curious people. And for families, it's all out.

And all of these wonderful entertainers — these people who are really trying to hang on to the traditions of their own cultures and bringing them all to Jackson and melting it all down right there in one place. We're all the same. We're all the same.

Paul

You being on the National Council for Traditional Arts, you know that bringing a festival to a city is a really intentional choice. So what does it mean to bring it to Jackson, Mississippi, specifically?

Jerry

You know, there are cities that vie for it, that call in to see if they could possibly be chosen, and then a team goes out and does a survey of different cities that come onto that roster. And Jackson was an obvious choice because it's right there in the Deep South and we really want to bring and build up the music that lives there in that city — plus bring some things to people who actually live in the city but did not know about these people that are playing everywhere and how special they are and what an amazing treasure you have right there in your city. Plus bring in all of these other cultures to examine and kind of check out.

There's always something new that you can find out, especially at a festival like this, which is so broad in its scope but is rooted in the soul of the city. We try to root it in the soul of the city so everybody has a little something in common with it right away, and then they can get in a little deeper. Take a look around and see what all's there, and it'll really surprise you what it brings out.

Paul

Well, you know, Mississippi is the birthplace of America's music. And there are so many layers here — blues and gospel and of course soul music as well. And as somebody who has spent your career at the intersection of American roots traditions, what do you make of what's happening here culturally?

Jerry

Well, I see a city that has some turmoil, just like any other city. But I think that Jackson needs to come together and recognize what it has there. That's the kind of city we love putting a festival in, because it stirs the imaginations and it brings out some strengths that the city didn't know it had. And it's an eye-opening experience to bring a big festival like this that lasts for three days downtown. It's a spectacle. And it's something for everybody to come and see. No one should stay away. There's something there for everybody.

Paul

Bluegrass has always had a storytelling tradition to it. It's music about real people and real places. The National Folk Festival's theme here — I think you'll like this — is 'Jackson's Got Good Folk.' And it plays on that word folk, talking about the people themselves. Does that resonate with you? Is there a connection between music and community that comes from something you think about when you're on a stage like this one?

Jerry

Well yeah, I would be thinking about all of the culture and all of the blues giants that have come from Mississippi, that have played right there in Jackson. And I feel great about following them on the stage in Jackson. It's just like you say — it's the birthplace of America's music. And it was hard fought. And it still is. And sometimes it was taken advantage of. But no, we're here to put it back in its high place.

Why Jackson Should Show Up for the National Folk Festival

Paul

Jerry, for someone in Jackson or in Mississippi, the Southeast, the country in general who might be on the fence about coming out to the National Folk Festival in November, what's your pitch to them?

Jerry

My pitch is there is going to be something there that you're gonna love. You have to go in search of it. It's like anything else — you get bored with the status quo, you go out in search of something new. And this is what you want to see. Because this is so broad and so eye-opening. There's gonna be something there that you're gonna love. And why not give yourself that opportunity — get out there and take a chance on something. I know it may be a stretch for some people to go, 'they're having a festival downtown, I don't want to go downtown.' Well, just go. Just go. Don't stay away from something that's gonna take your imagination and just spin it.

So many things to see and to hear and to just experience. It's worth the trip downtown. And if I lived there, I would go. I would go just to see what's gonna be there because the National Council for Traditional Arts, they put on a great show. And the people of Jackson have been really, really great to work with.

This is going to be a great year for Jackson and for the festival. And I'm really anxious to play there, because of my connections to Mississippi and all the different kinds of music that I play. I'm gonna bring it all. And I know there'll be a lot of other bands there thinking the same thing I am — just getting the opportunity to play for the people of Jackson, who have such a revered history in music, especially in the blues and the wonderful things that have come out of there. We want to celebrate that.

Paul

He's a world-renowned Dobro player. He'll be in Jackson, Mississippi the weekend of November 13th through 15th, and a board member of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, which puts on the National Folk Festival. Jerry Douglas, thank you so much for being here.

Jerry

It's my pleasure. I'm so happy you asked me to come on. It's been a great opportunity to talk to you and the people of Jackson.

I'm really excited to come there and play because it's like going to play the Opry. It's like going to play the Ryman. These places are tent poles all around the country and Jackson is definitely one of 'em.

OUTRO

Paul

That is the masterful Jerry Douglas, whose story is about the discipline of serving the song — how showing up ready to paint around whatever subject lands in front of you, session after session, is its own kind of genius. He'll tell you the through line across 1,600 albums isn't a genre; it's adaptability. And somehow, every time, it still sounds like him. The Set, his first solo album in seven years, is out now — the full live range of the Jerry Douglas Band on record. We'll have links in our show notes at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

Soul Sessions comes to you from Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Jackson, Mississippi — the City With Soul. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Rickey Thigpen, and I'm Paul Wolf, managing editor and your host for these conversations. Keep up with everything happening in the City With Soul at visitjackson.com. If you have a question about Jackson or a story idea you'd like us to explore, send it our way. My email is pwolf - that's Wolf with no e – at visitjackson.com.

Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.

Listen to previous episodes of Soul Sessions