Part Two: Tools Of The Trade

BR: What’s the current tally of albums you’ve recorded both with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and solo?

JM: I’ve recorded six albums of my own and I believe the Dirt Band is up to, like, 33 or 34. I don’t know as it’s fair to count the ones where someone goes in, licenses 12 cuts, and puts them out as a repackage. Not counting those, I think it’s 34 albums – and that’s over a 44-year spread. Plus there are another nine albums that I’ve produced for other people.

BR: There are a lot of folks who may not be aware of how many instruments you play – what’s the list?

JM: It’s funny, because with the Dirt Band, there are people who will often say, “Oh, you’re the fiddle player” or “You’re the guy that plays the mandolin, aren’t you?” A lot of times it depends on what song they’re familiar with and what I play on that particular song. Often it’s the banjo or the fiddle; I also play acoustic guitar, mandolin, and lap steel –

BR: Ooh – what kind of a lap steel?

JM: An old Fender – a 1954 Fender that I paid $15 for. (laughter) It’s got the best pickup in the world and sounds really great … it makes me sound like I know what I’m doing.

I don’t consider myself a keyboard player, but I understand the keyboard enough that I can overdub little piano licks for a song, for instance. No massive, dominating piano parts – although I did play piano on a Dirt Band recording once after a producer made a bet with me that I wouldn’t have a part together in time … I won. (laughter)

Let’s see … I’ve played the hammered dulcimer, accordion – and a Japanese instrument called the koto. Acoustic stringed instruments are definitely my strong point.

BR: Are there advantages and/or disadvantages to being a multi-instrumentalist? In particular, I’m wondering about how you keep your chops up with all the traveling that you do, which is bound to limit practice time on any instrument, let alone several.

JM: I really believe that playing different instruments helps keep me from having carpal tunnel problems because my hands aren’t constantly in the same positions. At the same time, I’m not much good at opening a ketchup bottle – my hands twist a different way. I’ve come to be afraid of people shaking my hand, as many times it’s a situation where they’re like, “I’ve waited a long time to meet you …” and they grab your hand and just crush it. I’ve come close to really having my hand damaged from that kind of thing.

But I think that playing different instruments and laying off any one in particular sometimes helps the chops, actually. I’ve had times when I worked really intensely to get a part on the banjo, we’ll say. Maybe after an hour or so, I figured I had it pretty well down … and then the next day I’ll pick the banjo back up and discover I can play that same part easily. I’m not trying as hard.

There are some moments in music – and in life – that are only going to happen the way they do if they’re spontaneous. If you try to set them up, it just isn’t going to happen.

BR: For example?

JM: Oh, like pitching a dime into a coin return slot on a payphone from about 10’ away …

BR: (laughs) Wait – which you’ve done?

JM: Sure – it was a spur of the moment thing and I just knew I could do it. Now if you came up to me and said, “I heard you can do that,” and I tried, I’d never be able to. (laughs) But if it’s a spontaneous occurrence …

BR: So, applying that to music …

JM: Well, if you’ve listened to the Will The Circle Be Unbroken album … (sound of a banjo being tuned)

The last part of the banjo on “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” goes like this (tears off a banjo run over the phone), but I meant to go like this (plays a slightly different passage). I did it in one take in the studio – no overdubs – and under pressure. Afterwards, I had to figure out what I did to play it the same way again. I was saying, “Wow, that’s cool – how did I do that?” (laughter)

BR: In amongst everything else you have going on these days, you also do a regular “Acoustic Traveller” show on XM Radio’s “The Village”. Where do you find time to put those together?

JM: I’m working on one here today, actually. I sent one in yesterday and want to get next month’s together before I go back out on the road. I’m working right here in my home studio, putting cuts together and talking about them. Each show is between an hour and a half and two hours long and I just put them together as I can and try to stay ahead of things. Last year, I actually did two shows from the tour bus while we were up in Canada, using my portable ProTools system. “Hey everybody, sorry for the big bus sound in the background, but it’s been a busy month.”

BR: And you’ve done …

JM: 12 shows a year – I just turned in my 54th. I enjoy doing it – it’s something new. I like being able to talk to a few hundred thousand people at once and see where it goes. But even if it were only a few dozen people, I think the purpose for me being here is to make things and to continue making them; whether they’re stories, music, live shows, radio shows, or whatever.

Plus, it’s more fun than just sitting around the house. (laughter) And I really do enjoy it. If the day comes that I have to quit going out on the road, people are going to point at me and say, “That guy over there? He’s a retired kid.”

BR: There are worse things. (laughter) One more gearhead question: I know you have an older Gibson banjo that you use a lot …

JM: That’s a Gibson Florentine, made in 1927. I actually lean towards using my Deering banjos; I have a couple of them and they’re quite wonderful. There are many great banjos out there now – years ago, there weren’t. For some reason, the people who build banjos seem to be quite competitive – more so than guitar or piano builders, I believe.

BR: Was the banjo the first thing that captivated you?

JM: No, it was actually the guitar. I started playing the guitar at age 17 for about six months until I saw an amazing bluegrass group called the Dillards. I was totally blown away that night – I went home and took the fifth string off my guitar, put a first string on, and tried to figure out how to get it to sound like a banjo.

BR: (laughing) How’d that work out?

JM: Well, I went back to see them the next night and I happened to meet Rodney Dillard himself. I told him what I’d done to my guitar and he said, “What you want to do is get yourself an HO railroad spike and drive it in at the fifth fret and put the string under that.” So I did.

BR: And?

JM: And then I had to go back the next night to find out how to tune it. (laughter) I got my first banjo six months later when I turned 18. I told my father I wanted to be a musician and he said, “Well … I think you’re going down the wrong road.” Yet, he bought me my first banjo.

BR: Well, there – God bless him.

JM: You could say he was supportive, yet worried. You can imagine what he was thinking: I was a college student who was getting sucked into music. His assessment of music was, “You’re going to end up in a bunch of smoky bars” – and I wanted to know when he’d been in them to see what was going on himself, you know? (laughter)

But when he heard my first record on the radio before he passed away, I think he felt better about it.

BR: Ah – that’s great that he got to hear where you were headed.

JM: And to be honest, there’s something to what he said about playing for a bunch of people who don’t really care – that is what happens if you’re not careful.

If you’re not aggressive about your music; if something doesn’t happen that makes it seem to be valuable; if it loses that magic that makes it important to people, then you do become background to a lot of people. You become the guy that they turn to and say, “Would you mind turning that down? We’re trying to have a conversation over here.” It’s a very tough game at times.

BR: So, it’s fair to say that seeing the Dillards really changed things for you.

JM: Absolutely. Plus, I wanted to be on stage. I worked in the magic shop at Disneyland for three years and I realized that I really enjoyed performing in front of people.

BR: I wanted to ask you about that: you really did work in a magic shop?

JM: Yes.

BR: At Disneyland?

JM: Yes. That was before I was playing music; I was 16 and I really wanted to work at Disneyland. We were living in Anaheim, CA at the time. I’d done a little bit of magic and knew some tricks and ended up working in the magic shop.

It was great: every 15 minutes you had a whole new audience you would pitch tricks to – a group of anywhere from 2 to 20 people. It was one of the best things somebody could be doing as far as learning to work in front of people, as you needed to be able to perform the trick and then turn around and sell it, you know? (goes into his magician’s pitch) “If you liked that trick, it’s only a buck fifty a deck. Any idiot can do these tricks – hey, I can do ‘em! What? That makes me an idiot? Well, I guess it does! You’ll take one? Great – that’s $1.52 with tax. Would you like a sack or a bag with that? What’s the difference? The sacks are a dollar each, the bags are free.”

BR: (laughing) Stop. Just stop.

JM: Well, anyway … (laughs) It was a great way to develop your rap and interact with a crowd.

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