Ron Block of Alison Krauss and Union Station plays Folk In Fusion on 13 January at Waterfront Hall, Belfast as part of the Your Roots Are Showing Music Conference. We asked him the BIG questions . . .
He will also guest speak throughout the conference from 14 to 18 January in the ICC Belfast.
Tell us three things about yourself . . .
I love to practice, learn new music, and play with other people. I never tire of it.
I love to read. My mother taught me to read when I was very young, at four or five years old, and reading has influenced my playing. Playing a song, or a guitar or banjo solo is a lot like telling a story. A few of my favourite books I've read and reread throughout my life: The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis; The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien; Orthodoxy, and Tremendous Trifles by G.K. Chesterton; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas; Lilith, and Phantastes by George MacDonald; Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue; The War of Art by Steven Pressfield; If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.
I’m a traveller - I’ve always had a sense of wanderlust, and I love to explore. I especially loved the days before I had a GPS in my pocket and had only a paper map if I became completely lost. Even now when out walking I try to use my own sense of direction to find my way.
How would you describe your music?
I am a mixture of my influences plus my own experimentation, so that would be a strong bluegrass base combined with a lot of other influences from old-style country, blues, rock, and old jazz. My banjo playing is grounded in the style of older bluegrass players like Earl Scruggs and J.D. Crowe - rolls (varied fingerpicking patterns), chords, and licks. I look at bluegrass banjo as the hi-hat of a band, subdividing the beats, while bass and mandolin are kick and snare.
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
As I developed, I also began experimenting with electric guitar left-hand techniques on the banjo and acoustic guitar as well. When I joined Alison Krauss & Union Station back in 1991, those bluesy string-bending ideas began to come out more in my playing, and it became part of the band sound.
Around 2012, I began playing banjo on Kate Rusby’s albums and occasionally on her shows, which sometimes has required a completely different approach - there are more melodic lines to play as well as the more bluegrass rolls.
Kate’s bandleader, guitarist, and husband, Damien O’Kane, asked me if I’d be interested in making twin-banjo music - his tenor banjo, my five-string banjo, guitar, and bass. It’s been the biggest and best learning curve I’ve had in a long time. He’d send me tunes and I’d think, "I have no idea how to play this!" Sometimes I felt like a beginner - it really developed my thinking skills and technique. My intention was to make my five-string playing on tunes sound a little more like a tenor player, a little more staccato and edgy, while still retaining my own identity as a bluegrass player. I’ve learned a lot about writing banjo tunes as well.
When asked if we play Dueling Banjos, I always say "I prefer cooperating banjos."
Our first album, Banjophony, came out in 2018, our second, Banjophonics, in 2022, and our latest, Banjovial, came out in October this year.
Who are your musical inspirations?
Ah, those are many, but here’s a short list of my most influential: On the bluegrass side, I was in my early teens when I discovered Flatt & Scruggs, J.D. Crowe and the New South, Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, the Osborne Brothers, Larry Sparks, and further back, Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Tommy Jarrell, and more. Tony Rice, The Bluegrass Album Band, Ricky Skaggs, Boone Creek with Terry Baucom. Del McCoury with Paul Silvius crushing it on banjo. And Scott Vestal’s banjo playing. Hot Rize. Newgrass Revival. David Grisman’s albums.
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Old country in my mid-teens onward: Merle Haggard (with Roy Nichols, James Buchanan, Reggie Young, and other guitarists), George Jones, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb (with Leon Rhodes).
At about 18 or so I began to listen to blues, early Jazz, and other music, and I began to play electric guitar. I listened to a lot of Robert Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Charlie Christian, Django, B.B. King, Albert King, Eric Clapton. I love Ray Charles. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, and Paul Brady. I love listening to classical music as well, especially classical guitar and piano.
In the past fifteen years, I’ve been influenced greatly by playing with Damien and playing on Kate’s albums. They’ve taught me to think differently about what I do, and Damien has really opened my mind up to new ways of playing, new techniques, and endless possibilities.
What was the first gig you ever went to?
I grew up around my Dad’s music store, so I was always hearing people sit around and play. I don’t remember specifically going to any gigs very early on, but I do remember my first bluegrass festival. I was 15, and I’d been practicing incessantly for three years by myself in my room, learning, playing with albums. It was a fantastic experience to hear the pro bands on stage, and then to jam and play music in the campground at night, sleep five hours, and do it all again the next day. By the end of that weekend, I’d been asked to play in my first band.
What was the first record you ever bought?
The first album I remember is one of my Mom’s, Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Dad bought me my first bluegrass album, The Country Gentlemen, when he gave me a banjo for my birthday. I don’t remember the first album I bought, but it’s likely it was a bluegrass collection on CMH Records. I grew up in California and was ordering bluegrass albums from County Sales in Virginia. Tower Records San Bernardino in my home state of California had a good bluegrass selection, and our local store in Torrance had a few. I also bought many at bluegrass festivals. I remember buying albums from Hot Rize, Ralph Stanley, Larry Sparks, Don Reno, Bill Monroe, Jim and Jesse, and many others that came from out East to the California festivals.
What’s your favourite song right now?
That’s a tough call because I have many. I’ll give three. Sandra McCracken’s song Fool’s Gold, which is a heartbreaker. Andrew Peterson’s song World Traveler. Niall McCabe’s song The Ritual is beautifully romantic.
Favourite lyric of all time?
World Traveler is one of my favourites. He takes a simple concept, a kid growing up longing to travel: "I grew up in a little town, the southern mix of lost and found,
Where most folks seem to stick around, oh-oh-oh… But I could hear the highway-song, I’d sit out on the dock till dawn, And dream about the great beyond, a dream that I was a world traveller, set me loose to find my way, Just get me out on the road someday with my sails unfurled, So many mysteries I wanted to unravel, If I could travel the world
And he turns it into a masterpiece about life, love, and what’s truly important. I won’t spoil the rest of the song for you because it’s full of surprises and also has a beautiful musical setting. He does similar magic with his song called Dancing in the Minefields.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
It’s likely I would have to choose something instrumental, long-form, and fairly complex, like a symphony by Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, or some other composer. Something I could really sink my teeth into for a long time, learn from, and inform my own compositions. Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote in his book On the Art of Reading ". . . if they could really master the ninth book of Paradise Lost, so as to rise to the height of its great argument and incorporate all its beauties in themselves, they would at one blow, by virtue of that alone, become highly cultivated men. More and more various learning might raise them to the same height by different paths, but could hardly raise them further. . . in reading, it is not quantity so much that tells, as quality. . . and thoroughness of digestion."
Where can people find your music/more information?
My website. Damien is here. Most of our music is on listening platforms, but we also have CDs for sale at purerecords.net. He and I usually tour the UK and/or Ireland every year at some point.
Alison’s website, and our music also available on various platforms. It’s likely we’ll tour again next year, and I certainly hope a UK/Ireland/European tour will happen in the next two or three years.
Alan Corr
