When you conjure up a mental image of a “professional banjo player,” a 17-year-old young woman from Brooklyn may not be exactly who comes to mind. But Nora Brown, a three-time Billboard Bluegrass Top 10 charter, recent Tiny Desk performer, Dolly Parton interviewee and George Gibson trainee, is changing the game (and the face) of contemporary bluegrass music. I caught up with her before she played a sold-out show at The Parlor Room in Northampton, Mass. on Saturday, Nov. 12.
Brown is soft-spoken and thinks before she speaks; yet, when interviewing her, I got the sense that she was older than me, rather than the other way around. Granted, four years isn’t that big a difference, but there’s something surreal about speaking to a current college applicant (she came straight to Northampton from a college interview) whose typical weekend is performing a sold-out concert.
“I’m in an interesting position where I’ve had a lot of the experiences a professional musician might have but without that risk that people kind of have to take to be able to do that,” said Brown, who released her first album at 15 and has played shows and festivals as far as the Czech Republic. She’s quick to note how supportive her parents have been, who take her to play concerts on the weekends (no shows on school nights) and have always encouraged her to pursue her interest in traditional music.
Watching Brown play onstage was truly a transportive experience; she channeled the music she plays, and even sitting in the Parlor Room in NoHo, one felt moved to the mountains of Eastern Appalachia. Whether singing a rendition of a 19th-century Irish murder ballad — “Rose Connolly” — or Jean Ritchie’s “Jenny, Put the Kettle On,” Gillian Welch’s “Revelator,” or Anna & Elizabeth’s “Very Day I’m Gone,” Brown harnessed the honesty and emotional rawness of love, heartbreak, divorce, murder and outlaws without sliding into earnesty or sentimentality. (As my mom texted me after I sent her one of Brown’s recordings, “Great chops!”)
Before she played each song, Brown gave its history, including who she learned it from, and where the person who taught it to her — directly or indirectly — learned it. For Brown, the history of a song is as important to her performance as its melody and lyrics. Part of this is because she’s directly studied with many contemporary masters of bluegrass and old-time — Alice Gerrard, Lee Sexton, George Gibson and John Haywood, to name a few. But mostly, as Brown highlighted in our interview, “it’s sort of second nature within traditional music.”
Between songs, she told stories and legends of bluegrass music. Brown is interested in the historical context for the music, and mentioned onstage the Coal Creek region, a hub for songs about labor and worker’s resistance. “I could go on,” she said, evoking a laugh, before moving on to play “Copper Kettle,” a version of which she learned from Jefferson Murphy. Brown spoke about Norman Blake, an influential musician who is impossible to get ahold of “unless you go sit outside his house for a few days. Then, he might let you in.” This method of safeguarding music and tradition extends beyond the privacy of personal artists; many of the older songs that Brown played are difficult to find online, and if they are accessible, it’s only through websites dedicated to preserving old-time music, banjo forums or on Reddit threads where users argue about the proper tuning.
Brown’s quality is not only in her finger-picking, strumming (she switched between two guitars and a banjo throughout the performance) and vocal chops, but also in making the histories she plays come alive. The stories become her own; even though Brown is the first to note that they may not have started with her, she becomes part of their history, and they hers.
Read the full interview here:
I want to start with this quote from Bob Boilen, who described you as having “a passion for the music of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, with a thirst for storytelling.” I’m curious about what kinds of stories call to you?
I think what Bob was getting at is the storytelling qualities of the traditional songs that I play and the stories that they hold. I don’t do a lot of my own personal storytelling onstage or through my music. I only play traditional music, I don’t do any songwriting. It is something that I’m interested in, but it hasn’t been a part of my musical experience to this point.
I do draw a lot of inspiration from different banjo players and different old-time artists from different regions of Appalachia. There’s a lot of folks that I’ve gone to visit in person and learned music from, like Lee Sexton and George Gibson, and also John Haywood. He’s from the younger generation and also is a really incredible banjo player. I do get some inspiration from learning in person with people, but I also get a lot from listening to old recordings, field recordings and that sort of thing. I would say I express my own storytelling, even though I’m not telling my own stories, through self-expression within the bounds of traditional music. I’m taking the general melody and qualities of a tune, but then also taking my own hands and changing it to suit me. That’s usually unconscious — you know, I’ll pick something up and play with it a little bit, change things to suit your playing more.
When you’re deciding what you want to work with, would you say it’s primarily the melody of the piece or the lyrics of the piece that initially calls you to it?
It’s definitely different in different situations. Sometimes, I’ll be like, the lyrics are really cool here, I want to see what I can do with this. But most of the time, I just like the song. I can think of a couple situations where the lyrics tell a cool story or have a unique message and I want to learn it for that reason.
Jumping off of that, as a young woman working in a genre that’s not typically either catered to or played by young women, what has that experience been like? How have you taken your identity and made the genre yours?
I definitely am inspired by the women that came before me and have pioneered that area for women in traditional old-time and bluegrass music. Probably one of the first pioneering women in bluegrass and in old-time in general is Alice Gerrard; she was a part of Hazel & Alice, who played a lot during the folk revival. Alice is still alive, she produced my first album and so I’ve spent some time with her. She taught me some stuff with singing and coached me through some of my early stages of finding my voice. There’s people like Alice, and today, Rhiannon Giddens, and the former band Anna and Elizabeth. I’m sure they played here in the past, but they’re not together anymore. I’ve been so lucky to have these people before me and sometimes get to know them. They’ve really inspired me and shown me that it is possible, that I’m able to do it.
Also, my family supports me and is able to help me travel and bring me to places. I’m able to do that because of that part of my identity. And there are definitely lots of young women playing traditional music today that aren’t able to do the things I do because they don’t have the support that they need to do it.
It’s still tricky, being a young woman in this male-dominated — heavily male-dominated — genre. Maybe more so than a lot [of genres]. There’s lots of festivals where I’m maybe the only female performers there. Or social settings, I’m pretty used to being one of the few women. I’m sort of numb to it. It’s an interesting experience. A lot of women have gone through a lot worse so that I could have an easier time.
My mom is a huge Rhiannon Giddens fan, she’s gonna be so excited when she reads this. And I love how you phrased how important it is to tap into the tradition of those who came before you.
At 17, you’re so young, and yet you’ve already made such huge waves in the genre. So how do you see your trajectory? What do you see coming next?
I’m really excited to go to college and learn about what I want to do. I’m in an interesting position where I’ve had a lot of the experiences a professional musician might have but without that risk that people kind of have to take to be able to do that. I’ve always had a roof over my head, being a minor. It’s cool to be able to see a little bit of what that would be like, being a professional musician and kind of, like, have money be the motivating factor in making music. That kind of is what you have to do, especially in this genre, where it’s tricky to get by doing this.
It’s definitely worth it to do what you love, for maybe a price of compromising what your values are in music. I’m grateful that I’ve seen what it’s like to have to promote things, and have to work to get shows, although what I’ve seen is not half of it, without the urgency.
I’m definitely very open to pursuing professional music, but I’m also really interested in ethnomusicology and the research side. I’m really inspired by the work of John Cohen and other field recorders. That’s something I’m really interested in, and I want to explore that side of it. But I know that if I go to college, I’m not going to be studying performance. If you want to do traditional music, it’s not really the place for that. I’m excited to use the coming years to see how I want music to play a role in my life.
That’s very grounded.
This is my last official question; it’s kind of a silly one. I read that you grew up over a cheese…place?
Yeah, my parents formerly ran a cheese-aging business in the caves below our house.
So I’m wondering what your favorite kind of cheese is.
I should know more names, but I’m thinking of this one cheese right now that I enjoy. It’s called Boujee Blue. I’m not remembering the farm that makes it, but that’s the name.
It sounds very boujee.
It’s boujee, but it’s good.
Is there anything else you want to share?
Yeah, I like to talk about this whenever I have a situation where I can. I like talking about the importance of listening in order to create. There’s no shame in mimicking or copying other performance. It’s a little bit different for traditional music, where that’s kind of how it works exactly. But in any art form, it’s so important — whether it’s poetry, or visual art — to study the work of those who came before you. That can be so influential in developing your personal style. That’s just sort of second nature within traditional music, it’s kind of all I’ve ever done. But it really should be applied to all art. You know, it’s the greatest sin to copy, to mimic other’s work — but in informing your own style, that’s kind of the most important thing.
Yeah, the “greatest sin” thing feels very individualistic.
Yeah, exactly. It’s like, oh, it has to be original, it has to be mine. I was just having this conversation with my college interviewer earlier today. In reality, there’s so much cultural depth within music itself, and so it’s normal to take pieces of different work and have that influence your own creations. Or using your own self-expression to influence someone else’s creation. It still is yours, it’s still come from your own hands. I was inspired when I read “How to Write Poetry” by Mary Oliver earlier this year because I was trying to do some songwriting. She starts by talking about how important it is to read poetry, and I was like, okay, wow, I’ve never read a book of poetry in my life, so what am I doing to write poetry? It was inspiring to me to see my own personal values reflected in other places. So I like to share that in case it inspires other people.
I feel like that’s something we don’t talk about enough, about being in conversation and in dialogue with those who came before you. You’re not going to get anywhere if you’re not focused on that kind of communion.
Mhm. And of course, having somebody else’s work influence your own, it’s so important to credit that. And that’s a big part of playing traditional music is being like, this is where I learned this song, this is who influenced me.
