songwriter's monthly june '11, #137 - grascals

8/6/2019 Songwriter's Monthly June '11, #137 - Grascals

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Our whole existence has been aboutming, Terry Smith, songwriter andass player of the award-winninguegrass group Therascals began. Theke is that we werel unemployed ate same time so wee c i d e d t o d oo m e t h i n g , h eughed a rich andmbling heh, heh,e h t h a t r o l l e dl o n g w i t h t h e g r a c e f u l d r i v eharacteristic of one of his trademarkass lines.

he Grascals latest release is aelightful 7-track gem called D ANCEILL YOUR S TOCKINGS ARE H OT ANDAVELIN . The EP is a tribute to theusic of THE ANDY G RIFFITH S HOW fromluGrascal Records/Saguaro Roadecords. The physical CD releasellows hot on the heels of Andys June

1st birthday! The Grascals previous CD,T HE G RASCALS & F RIENDS : C OUNTC LASSICS W ITH A B LUEGRASS S P

debuted at #1 on theBillboard BluegrassAlbum Chart aheld that position forseven weeks!

Songwriters Monthlycaught up with Terryfresh off the tour busas he was driving

down to visit his mom. I promised notto ask questions that might require toomuch of his concentration and Smithchuckled, Oh my gosh, what a storythat would make: The Grascals LostDuring One Of My Interviews!

Was the joke about The Grascals origin based in fact or fiction, Iwondered. Did the band really happenbecause you were all unemployed atthe same time?

The Grascals (L-R): Danny Roberts, Jami e Johnson, Kristin Scott Benson, Jeremy Abshire, Terry Eldredge, and Terry Smith
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Theres a lot of truth in that, Terrydmitted, a whole lot of truth. A lot of s were in between gigs and when weut The Grascals together it was like,Lets do something, lets cut a little CDnd do a little stuff on the side. Weerent really sure what we wanted to

o.

o w e v e r, a s T h erascals were cuttingeir first CD, Dolly

arton was gearing upgo on the road. A

ouple of the membersad worked with Dolly

the past and she was interested inearing their new material.

We only had about 4 or 5 songs at theme, but she liked what she heard and

wo or three weeks later, we were one road as her opening band! That

retty much opened the door for us,ght there. So it was about timing, weould never have planned that.

mith confessed that D ANCE T ILL YOUR TOCKINGS A RE H OT A ND R AVELIN

egan as a completely different project.nfortunately (or fortunately), that firstroject fell through and this EP camegether just in time for this 50thnniversary celebration. Andy actuallyquested us on the project, Terry

ointed out. What an honor, hes a fanf our band! He chose us to be theand to do this. We absolutely love thehow!

o, once again, timing played a keyle in furthering The Grascals career.

reating great records with great

th emes also has been important to thebands career. Smith commented, Wedont go into a project thinking of aconcept, per se , we just try to puttogether some traditional songs withsome original songs and as the songsare coming together, a concept kind of

forms. A lot of times,the songs will begin todictate a theme or aconcept, as it were,what the album isgoing to be. Lifes likethat. As John Lennonsaid, youre kind of o v e r h e r e m a k i n g

plans as life happens.

My thought process skittered a bit. Likea pickup truck racing a little too fastalong a muddied back road, suddenly Iwas off-track. All I could think of wasthat a dyed-in-the-wool bluegrasstraditionalist was quoting Lennon?

Im a big Beat les fan, Terryp r o c l a i m e d . O u r a p p r o a c h t operforming is more traditional thanmost bluegrass bands, especially ourrhythm. Our rhythm is more like JimmyMartin or the Osborne Brothers asopposed to the newer bluegrass groups,but we all listen to different styles of music.

I had a flash of enlightenment and Irealized that was why The Grascalsmusic had such a wide-ranging appeal:its pure bluegrass yet there are popelements driving some of the keymoments in the music such as thesoloing or the instrumental breaks.Without editing my thoughts, I blurtedthat revelation out to Smith.
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they say, so I know what hes goingdo and he knows what Im going to

o. Its like that with Jamie an d theher guys and the gal, too. We getong very well.

efore concluding the interview, I askederry if he couldlk in detail aboute bonus track,Boy, Giraffes Areelfish.

We w e r e a p -roached to write

song about anpisode of T H E

N D Y G R I F F I T HHOW . The songe wrote comesom the episodea l l e d D o g s ,ogs, Dogs its

he one wherepie finds a littleog and wants toeep him and somehow all these otherogs show up. We were trying to figureut how to approach this we didntnow if we should just tell the story of e episode or not. Danny wrote downcouple of random lines that were saidn that episode. One of the lines washen Barney was trying to make Opie

fe el better about the dogs he hadtaken them and let them go in a fieldand a sto rm was coming up so hesays dogs are down close to the groundwhere the lightning wont hit theThen, he tells Opie that giraffes are uphigh in the air so it would be dangerous

for them, but nof o r t h e d o g sFinally, he saidt h a t d o g s l o o kafter their own,but giraffes dontand thats whenhe looks up andsays, Boy Giraffesare selfish. Sothats where thesong came from.That was the linethat tied every-t h i n g e l stogether.

Smith added, If youre a fan of T

ANDY G RIFFITH S HOW , youll totally getthis song. If youre not . . . youll thinkthat weve lost our minds! It wontmake a bit of sense. Were all suchhuge fans of THE ANDY G RIFFITH S HOits our favorite sitcom of all time! Anytime we can do anything to be involvedwith it, we will.

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If youd like a bonus treat, you can check out The Grascals special Happy Birthday message to Andy at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=tsjlAGrZwVg&fe ature=player_embedded And, to keep the good times going, there are several videos from D ANCE T ILL

Y OUR S TOCKINGS A RE H OT A ND R AVELIN at:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AA059ADF72912EA5

Finally, dont forget to stay in touch with The Grascals at:www.grascals.com
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songwriter's monthly june '11, #137 - grascals

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