Joe K. Walsh
Roots music isn't made in a vacuum. It's the creation of a community, of a circle of friends, of a teacher and a student. It’s something to be passed back and forth to be treasured. As an acclaimed master of American roots music, mandolinist and songwriter Joe K. Walsh knows this better than most. He’s toured with countless artists, collaborated with other master musicians like Darol anger and the Gibson Brothers, founded progressive stringband Joy Kills sorrow in the early 2000s, and is currently on faculty at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. His new album, Borderland, is an exercise in subtlety and careful creation. Turning through songs he wrote, or setting the words of Yeats to music, and picking out instrumental tunes of his own creation, Walsh plays and sings with the kind of ease that comes from years of practice and creation.
The touch of sawdust in his vocals, or the buzz of the mandolin strings may hint at the deep rural roots of this music, but what he’s creating now is a new kind of tradition. His first inspiration came as a teenager when he heard David Grisman, and then again when first hearing Del McCoury. The music he heard at that young age opened a window to new harmonic possibilities, and started Walsh exploring how to create new American roots music. What’s surprising then is that his new album is no act of wild fusion. Instead, it’s a joyful exploration of just why he loves this old music so much in the first place. With mastery comes restraint. With nothing left to prove, Walsh has dived deeper into the tradition, seeking to craft new music from old roots.
If you’ve been paying attention to mandolin music over the last 15 years, then you already know quite well what a talent Joe is. We met him after a performance with Mr. Sun, the beautiful quartet featuring Joe, our good buddy Darol Anger, Grant Gordy, and Ethan Jodziewicz. He was trying out what was to become his main axe, an awesome Nugget A5 Deluxe. It was a great show in a funky ballroom in Kalamazoo - in a hotel in the dead of winter. Pure Michigan. A tour or two later we met up with Joe again at the Swannanoa Gathering outside Asheville and spent a week talking about mandolins and tone. Late-night beers and pickin... Then came the octaves. We had just completed some and Joe had come across Sarah Jarosz’s axe as she was touring and preparing for the brand new “A Prairie Home Companion” that Chris Thile was taking over. Joe reached out and my brother Peter and I headed out to Boston to combine a trip to The Music Emporium and a run through Vermont to see our friend on the Battenkill River and snag an amazing log (or 2!) of some world-class sugar maple. Ya see? It’s a small, small world - tight-knit and full of amazing opportunities for “cross-pollination”. We’re so very lucky to make something that wonderful musicians appreciate and use and we’re proud and honored to count Joe K. Walsh as one of our friends and instrument ambassadors. AND dang can he play some of the most soulful music we’ve ever heard! Do yer self a favor and check out all of his recordings and projects.
