It might have been an understatement but it was spot on when radio host Mike Marrone said to guitarist Warren Haynes, “You’re a guy who likes to play a lot.”
“It beats digging a ditch,” Haynes shot back. He is the founder of Gov’t Mule, longtime member of the Allman Brothers Band and a guest on countless other collaborations and jams and made a visit to my favorite radio station, The Loft on SiriusXM. Haynes brought his acoustic guitar and a copy of Ashes & Dust, his new album that he previewed on the show Playing Records With Mike Marrone.
Haynes dropped by the Loft ahead of his official album release party tonight at Town Hall in New York, a short cab ride from the Beacon Theater where he stood onstage at the Allman Brothers Band’s final performance. Haynes shared that he’d pulled together some new songs and some old ones he’d been collecting over the years and didn’t want to fall in the trap of being heard as Allman Brothers or Gov’t Mule songs.
For Railroad Earth, New York is just across the river from their native New Jersey where the six-man band shares Hayes’ affinity for improvisation. Hayes said collaborating with Railroad Earth gave new room to interpret his songs. A good example is the song “Spots of Time,” a song he wrote with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. The track might have been on the last Allman Brothers Band album had they ever finished it. The presence on the track of Brothers’ bassist Oteil Burbridge and percussionist Marc Quinones provides a bridge between the recent past and present.
As Haynes did a solo acoustic version, Marrone had to play the bluesy jam from the record, which locks in at eight minutes, a modest time considering Haynes’ extensive history of free-form jamming that has served him and listeners so well. “It’s as live as we can make it,” says Haynes of the long form approach that has been his signature over several decades of playing.
Haynes introduced the phrase “psycho-Celtic” to describe the sound of the album, which is based on folk tradition. In revisiting Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman,” Haynes brought in Grace Potter to pay tribute to Stevie Nicks’ song and take the song to what he calls a different level. He and Potter had sung the song a few times but never talked about recording. Railroad Earth’s Todd Schaefer provides the third voice to give it a beautiful blend. “Wanderlust” is a song inspired by the late Gram Parsons. Haynes said he didn’t set out to write a song about him but kept seeing things throughout one week that inspired the song. “Blue Maiden” is the closest he feels he’s come to recreating a Celtic folk song and sites “John Barleycorn” by Traffic as a point of reference.
The new album also reveals his roots and ties to growing up in Asheville, North Carolina. The album features a cover of “Coal Tattoo,” a song he first heard at the age of fourteen. In making a 2015 version, Haynes pays tribute to writer Billy Edd Wheeler who just turned 82 and has written songs for over 160 artists. Haynes notes that he is also the writer of “Jackson,” the song made famous by John & June Carter Cash. Marrone proceeded to play it back to back with another version cut by Chuck Regan in the Loft studios.
One of the members of the Loft group on Facebook reminded us after the show aired about the significant contributions Haynes has made to Asheville. Haynes has been aligned with the charitable organization Habitat For Humanity for years. Each year, Haynes holds a special Christmas concert that raises money. If you look on Google Maps, you’ll see a street named after the guitarist called Warren Haynes Drive.
Growing up, Haynes cites the great groups and guitarists who were his influences including Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King and his brothers B.B. and Freddie, as well as the great saxophone player John Coltrane. Haynes said they each changed his life in an equal way. But he admits he didn’t understand the genius of blues guitarist Robert Johnson until much later.
As Marrone segued out of “Gold Dust Woman,” he went into a set of Fleetwood Mac songs beginning with “Frozen Love,” the song on the debut made by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks called Buckingham Nicks. It was a demonstration playback of this album at a studio in Los Angeles that prompted drummer Mick Fleetwood to invite the duo to join Fleetwood Mac. Going back into the band’s early years, Marrone pulled out blues guitarist Peter Green’s seminal songs “Need Your Love So Bad” and “Oh Well” that defined the British blues boom of the late Sixties. He followed it up with Cream’s “Outside Woman Blues.”
“We’re going into a deep hole we’re never gonna get out of,” Marrone laughed as the two could have spent hours jumping through time. Marrone proceeds to play Jimi Hendrix and both agree he changed the way records were made. They both seemed in awe of how much Hendrix recorded in the short time he was with us. They both agree there was no way of predicting where he was going to take his music.
Haynes also reached back in time to his musical encyclopedia when he charted out one song around midnight one night in the studio. The song is called “Hallelujah Boulevard.” Haynes told Railroad Earth to play it like “Astral Weeks,” the aural, atmospheric sound that pervades Van Morrison’s seminal album. The band cut three takes before Haynes sent them home. They didn’t listen to the playback until the next day. Haynes liked what he heard and selected the second take.
With the newfound psycho-Celtic genre, Marrone has heard the term enough times to hint that it might be time to copyright the name.
Haynes suggest something even more ambitious.
“It might make for another SiriusXM channel.”
Originally posted here.
