Track By Track: Warren Haynes _Ashes & Dust_ featuring Railroad Earth
Before Warren Haynes recorded 2011’s Man In Motion, the longtime Gov’t Mule guitarist had the idea for an altogether different project. He had intended to enter Levon Helm’s recording studio for an album that would feature Helm, Leon Russell and “T-Bone” Wolk. Those sessions never took place, as Wolk and Helm passed away before they came to fruition. However, some of the material that Haynes intended to record in that setting continued calling to him, and he eventually returned to those songs for his new record, Ashes & Dust, which also features the members of Railroad Earth.
“The first time I heard Railroad Earth was when they opened for the Allman Brothers at Red Rocks in 2009,” Haynes recalls. “Then, I did a solo acoustic show at DelFest [in 2011] and they were on the same festival, so I invited a couple of the guys to join me for a few songs and it was very cool. The big connection came when I was supposed to do a solo acoustic set at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester [N.Y., in October 2012] and I invited some of them to join me. We had a little more time to prepare and rehearse, and it went really good. It was after that when I started thinking that maybe this was the way I’d want to approach my next record. I knew some of the songs I was looking to record, and hearing them in that kind of setting and context really seemed to make sense. So it all started coming together at that moment.”
He is quick to praise the members of the group for their contributions to the overall sound of Ashes & Dust. “One of the cool things about being in the studio with the guys from Railroad Earth is that, aside from all being great musicians and having the diversity to interpret the songs in a way that reflects both the songs themselves and their own personalities, they also all play a lot of different instruments. So it gave us the opportunity to tackle each song on its own merit and say, ‘Hey, why don’t we try a banjo on this one? Why don’t we try a piano on this one? What about clarinet on the next one?’ We just took every song, one song at a time, and thought about what would sound best. We tried to record it as live as possible—on some songs we even kept a live vocal performance. We really just wanted to capture the chemistry that they had coming into this—and the chemistry I have developed in such a short time with those guys, which came about very organically and quickly. We didn’t dwell on anything.
Most of these songs we tried to get in the first three takes—there are some that are the first take. If it looked like it was taking much more than that, we would just step away and then maybe come back to whatever was bogging us down, which was very rare. It was a really comfortable feeling, making the record organically, and I think you can hear that freshness in the music.”
“Is It Me or You”
“Is It Me or You” is the oldest song on Ashes & Dust. I wrote that song in the mid-to-late ‘80s when I was living in Nashville, [Tenn.,] and I had always wanted to record it but I never found the right reason. Hearing it with a mandolin and fiddle and banjo, juxtaposed against my electric guitar, really brought it to life in a way that reminded me of why I wrote it.
“Coal Tattoo”
“Coal Tattoo” is written by my friend Billy Edd Wheeler. Billy Edd is the most famous of the Asheville-area songwriters. He wrote “Jackson” for Johnny Cash; he wrote “High Flying Bird.” His songs have been recorded by Neil Young, Jefferson Airplane, Richie Havens and Judy Collins. Billy Edd just turned 82, and I spoke with him quite a few times when it looked like I was gonna record “Coal Tattoo.” We met when I had just moved to Nashville in my 20s. He had a residence in Nashville and a residence in Asheville, [N.C.,] and he used to drive back and forth. Sometimes I would catch a ride with him. We would just hang out for those five-hour drives, and I would listen to him tell stories. We wrote a few songs together, and it was a nice, inspiring experience for me to get to know him and to work with him to the extent that I did. The collection of recorded songs that he’s written is quite amazing.
“Coal Tattoo” goes back, I would imagine, to the early ‘60s. It’s a song written about a coal miner. I first heard it when I was about 14, and I would sneak into this folk club in Asheville and hear this duo that later became a trio called Redwing. Redwing was Ray Sisk and Malcolm Holcombe, and they used to perform “Coal Tattoo.” Once I got to know those guys and they took me under their wing, I would play with them. That’s a song we would play a lot together. We would do this very rock version of it.
When I decided to make Ashes & Dust, I made a point to honor the Asheville-area songwriters that mentored me as part of that process. I wanted to record the songs in a way that’s similar to how I remember playing them when I first heard these songs. So, on “Coal Tattoo,” I’m reflecting on the way we used to play it a long time ago, and one of the reasons I chose it is because it’s as poignant now as it was in the early ‘60s. It’s about the life of a coal miner, and that’s quite a controversial subject.
“Blue Maiden’s Tale”
This is one of the newer songs on the album. When I wrote it, I was just thinking of a classic Celtic folk song, both from a lyrical standpoint and from a musical standpoint. That song is somewhat emulating the tradition of Celtic music and folk music and, in some ways, you could hear that song and think it could have been written anywhere in the last hundred years. I was trying to create an image that wasn’t necessarily a modern one. Musically and lyrically, that song is intended to take you back to another time and place.
“Company Man”
I wrote this about my father. It’s not brand new, but it’s not old either. It’s written in the tradition of a folk song, but in a way that is nonfiction. Everything in “Company Man” is true and accurate to his life, and it was a hard song for me to write because it’s an honest portrayal of that aspect of his life.
My dad grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and moved to Asheville at a young age. At that time, especially, it was still a very small town. He started working when he was 15, got married, had kids at a really young age, went to work for a certain company at 21 and stayed there for around 23 years. Then, when the company decided that they were shutting down in the Southeast, it meant moving up North, Midwest or West Coast if he wanted to keep his job. He didn’t think that was something he wanted to do, so rather than uproot his family, as it says in the song, he decided to start over and took a job in a factory where the kids had seniority over him.
It’s a Southern story of someone [who] has principles and convictions that I completely admire. I’ve always felt that my dad was a good role model and someone to look up to. It was time for me to record that—it fits beautifully into this overall perspective. In the deluxe edition of Ashes & Dust, I included a demo of that song that’s just me and a guitar and vocals, and you can see that it’s virtually the same song without the instrumentation. When we added the guys in Railroad Earth to it, it really comes to life with those instruments, which also reflects the influences, musically, that my dad had. He had a beautiful singing voice. He just never pursued it.
“New Year’s Eve”
This is a very personal song to me. When I recorded it, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to divulge the actual story because I don’t want people to be too influenced by it or to get the impression that it’s more melancholy than it is. “New Year’s Eve” is written about a childhood friend of mine who died on New Year’s Eve. He was a musician and a songwriter, and anybody who’s lost a friend or a loved one on a holiday understands that from that day forward, that holiday is changed forever. It’s no longer a day of celebration. Now, oddly enough, New Year’s Eve as a holiday is a day of reflection anyway—everybody reflects on their life and their previous year. This song kind of touches on that, but it’s also written through the eyes of someone who has lost a friend on New Year’s Eve. The narrator in this tune is reflecting even more because that’s what that holiday has become.
The first bridge says, “I’m sitting here on New Year’s, thinking about old friends and old times; we’ll never see them again.” In the second bridge it says, “I’m sitting here on New Year’s, singing about old friends and old times,” and that is indicative of how I tend to perform every New Year’s Eve. Usually, that keeps me from dwelling on it.
“Stranded in Self-Pity”
“Stranded in Self-Pity” is written by my friend Larry Rhodes—another one of those Asheville songwriters who I’m paying tribute to on this record. Larry is a great songwriter and another person I used to sneak in to see when I was 14 years old. We got to know each other and, eventually, I started performing onstage with him as well. He’s a masterful storyteller songwriter and he has one of those voices that’s perfect for that—he has a talking quality to his singing, and a singing quality to his talking. I’ve always wanted to record one of his songs, but there are very few of them that I felt I could do justice to.
“Stranded in Self-Pity” is a little more of a vehicle for singing than some of his songs might be, and we were able to take it to this New Orleans place but also add a little Django-Reinhardt-meets- Stéphane-Grappelli feel. Larry was another one of those people that mentored me and exposed me to not only his great songs, but also to folk songs and songs by singer-songwriters who were a little more obscure. I might not have heard them otherwise, which helped me become a better writer.
“Glory Road”
“Glory Road” is the third and final song in that series of Asheville writers. We recorded about 25 songs and I wasn’t sure that I was gonna include all three of the Asheville songs, or Asheville songwriter songs, in the first release of what I think will be a series. But when putting together what I felt had the best flow and made the most cohesive statement, it seemed like all three of them made sense and all the songs seemed to work together very well. “Glory Road” is a song I’ve been performing that some of my audience will recognize because it’s on Live At Bonnaroo. I’ve done it in my solo acoustic shows, and we’ve done it a couple of times with The Dead.
It was written by my friend Ray Sisk, who is another of those writers and artists I mentioned that I used to go hear at a really young age. It’s just a beautiful song, and as with “Blue Maiden’s Tale,” it kind of harkens back to a different time and place.
It’s kind of set in the Old West, although it metaphorically conjures up images that could be applied to modern times as well. The song’s talking about a bounty hunter and, in the past month or so, there’s been a lot of stuff in the news about bounty hunters—looking into whether or not bounty hunters have too much latitude or not enough regulation. I guess the best example of that is my friend Randy Howard, who I had not seen in decades. He was a songwriter that I knew 30 years ago who was recently killed by a bounty hunter. The way it happened was there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for a DUI. The guy came to apprehend him, it turned into a shooting match and Randy got killed. There’s been a lot of investigation about it, and as to whether or not that bounty hunter, or any bounty hunter, has the legal right to apprehend someone and to come into their house.
While it’s a little poignant in that way, the song that Ray wrote has nothing to do with that situation, or any particular situation. It’s written through the eyes of someone who has taken the life of a 17-year-old kid, and he says, “Now I lay me down to rest, and God bless the boy with my bullet in his chest, but you can’t bless me ‘cause I lost my soul.”
“Gold Dust Woman”
Grace [Potter] and I have been performing that song quite often over the past several years. I never even thought about recording it. But when I got into the studio working with the Railroad Earth guys, and with their instrumentation interpreting some of my songs, I started to think about how it would sound doing “Gold Dust Woman” in a sort of Celtic or acoustic environment. So I called Grace and mentioned it to her, and she said it sounded great and that we should totally do it. Again, I wasn’t sure that it would be on this first release, but it seemed to kind of cry out for that, and I love the performance. It takes it into this spooky, kind of haunting, Celtic direction that’s different from the original but still honors the original.
“Beat Down the Dust”
“Beat Down the Dust” is fairly new and was written about the ongoing situation in America with the old regime versus the new regime—the status quo where, rich, white, straight men rule the roost and are getting nervous about any change that may lie ahead, which deals with our current immigration system. It’s written through the eyes of a narrator, in the tradition of folk music, where the narrator’s viewpoint is the opposite of my own. I almost did a little prelude where I told a story about overhearing this conversation at a restaurant, but I decided not to include that and just let the song speak for itself.
Sometimes, if a song is a satire, you might wonder if people are gonna understand that a character speaking is not meant to be your own voice. But, as someone who—to a certain extent—has studied folk music and songcraft, it’s a pretty common thing to apply that to a narrator’s point of view— albeit not your own. If someone’s paying attention, they’re gonna get the sarcasm right away.
It’s something that’s become very poignant right now. I wrote it in the last couple of years, and we’ve watched this issue get more heated. Also, the fact that the music is coming from a Spanish sort of direction, and there’s that Latin percussion, gives it a certain vibe that helps as a backdrop for the story.
“Wanderlust”
“Wanderlust” is a song that I wrote fairly recently. It’s written about Gram Parsons. I didn’t set out to write a song about Gram Parsons. I don’t even consider myself an expert on Gram Parsons. I just had a few- day period where everything was coming up Gram Parsons. Everywhere I went, somebody was talking about him. In a very uncanny sort of way that inspired me to write this tune. Being able to have Mickey Raphael play harmonica on it was great. He also played on the demo of the song, which I’ve included on the deluxe edition of the record. And then, having Shawn Colvin sing harmony just really elevated it. I’m really happy with the way it turned out. It’s kind of a unique, stand-alone piece on the record. I don’t think it sounds like anything else on the record, but it sure turned out beautiful.
“Spots of Time”
I wrote this song with Phil Lesh, and the Allman Brothers started performing it three or four years ago. It would have been on the final Allman Brothers record—had we made one—so I decided to record it here. I invited Oteil [Burbridge] and Marc Quiñones from the Allman Brothers Band to join me, along with some of the guys in Railroad Earth. So we were able to take some of the stage experience that Oteil and Marc and myself had from playing it dozens of times with the Allman Brothers, and combine that with the freshness of the Railroad Earth guys, who had never heard it before. It really turned out great and it’s one of the centerpieces of the record. It’s certainly the most improvisational piece and the longest number as well.
“Hallelujah Boulevard”
This song tackles organized religion as well as dealing with racial inequality and income inequality in our society. It’s about living your life to the best of your ability right now and how we depend on each other to make that happen. It segues into “Word on the Wind,” which is about everybody getting together and making the world a better place, kind of in a ‘60s sort of a mantra. “Hallelujah Boulevard” is one of a few songs, another of them being “Gold Dust Woman,” where I wanted to capture us recording around midnight. My idea was to take a song that the guys in Railroad Earth hadn’t really heard before, to learn it briefly, record three takes at midnight, and then come back the next day and listen to what we had.
With “Hallelujah Boulevard,” each of the three takes was different from the others, and the one that we chose just has this dreamlike quality, which is what I was trying to conjure up and trying to capture. I think it really sells the song and the story very well. What I love about it is—that as a recording and as a performance—there are no repetitive parts. No one’s playing in a structured sort of way, everybody’s just playing stream of consciousness. That was the way the song was written and that’s the way I wanted it to be interpreted, and I think it’s a beautiful version.
“Word on the Wind”
Todd [Sheaffer] and I wrote “Word on the Wind” just prior to going into the studio. It has political connotations, and the vibe that is inherent in a lot of late-‘60s music—we all have to pool together and decide what kind of a country we want to live in, what kind of world we want to live in. I think we have to kind of adopt a ‘60s philosophy of the people steering the ship. In no way is that meant to be anti-government—it’s meant to project a message that we are the government, we are the people, we have to be involved, we have to become informed, and we have to educate ourselves to influence the legislation in the way that we educate our children and the way we take care for the future.
We’ve become a very complacent society, where as long as people have air-conditioning, cable TV and a chili dog, then we’re content. I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of the people in our country aren’t paying attention to what’s going on politically and are only going to start caring once it’s too late. So that’s kind of the message of that tune, and it’s a positive outlook, really. It’s a way of ending the record by saying, “It’s up to us. We can do it and we will do it.”
