Rollo White began our conversation with a quote from Woody Guthrie, "It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people." I think this may be the time and place to do just that. And where is the time and place? Saturday, August 22, the 8th season of The Hobart Sausage & Brew Fest, with fresh farm-to-table sausages and locally grown vegetables for comfort and folk music to comfort and disturb. We talk about the folk music that disturbs, after all, folk music is the music of the working people written for the consumption of working folks. There are times it is less than polite but it is always honest and direct.
Rollo is coming to Hobart for the first time, but he isn't a stranger. He has several friends who live in Hobart, and in Grand Gorge, (me) funny enough, he used to live across the street from my theater and tavern in New York City. Small world. He has friends in Fleischmanns and Woodstock. Like many folk musicians, Rollo has had enough of tours, travelling rough and sleeping wherever. So being able to do a gig where he can spend the night is a plus. It's about time he threw his guitar in the back of the car and came up here. He's bringing his guitar but using local talent for his back up: Bruno Bruzzese – fiddle, Alan Thomson – piano, Thomas Wandell -- drums. You may recognize these names, Bruno has been playing the fiddle for fifty years. He's a board member of the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association. Thomas Christopher Wandell has come home to the Hudson Valley region from studies in Boston and playing in NYC, and he and Brono play with The Hudson Valley Flyers. Alan Thomson has played with Milt Hinton, Pete Seeger, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Ruth Pelham, Vanaver Caravan, and Tom Paxton to name a few.
Rollo's family was from South Carolina and he grew up around Maryland in the suburbs, playing music in Washington. He started at 14, in the "countryish/folk scene." He was listening to the music of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Prine and others. That was the music of his home tradition. After studying classical guitar he wanted to "play anything that wasn't classical, even playing noise bands..." He played free jazz with folks such as Anthony Braxton and Don Cherry. But George Jones, Merle Haggard were the music of his home, the sound of his soul. For a time, Rollo played with a band called Maynard and the Musties. Joe Maynard inspired Rollo to write music and it opened a new door for his performance. He was getting ready to do an album and COVID hit, so the record was put off and Rollo delved into home recording. He was not recording finished recordings for market, but rather using home recording for making demos of his songs.
But it was his growing up in Maryland that colored his playing. Though he grew up in an urban environment, if he went a short distance out into the country he was in the rural South. Their music was a blend of Southern Appalachian and Virginian, and West Virginian styles, and his playing is unselfconsciously in the Piedmont tradition. His playing is influenced by a childhood listening to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and picking up their tunes. It wasn't a matter of wanting to learn to play folk music, discover roots, rather "it was a sound that was there in your DNA, in your bloodstream," Rollo tells me.
His album is now out, Highway 81 Revisited. The album is named for Highway US I-81, the road Rollo travels from New York City to Nashville. He never feels at home in New York, so that is the road which brings him home to his music and his audience. The album is "sort of Honky Tonk Country." Rollo recorded it in Nashville, because, though there are fine musicians here who can play that kind of music, "it isn't their thing." Recording it in Nashville, he could employ musicians for whom that is their native tongue. In Irish music, we refer to the Blas, the flavor and accent of a person's playing.
"Everyone plays down there. The barista is a great guitar pi