Contact: Bluegrass Guitarist Michael Daves

The speedy flatpicker on why New York City, not Nashville, is the place for an up-and-coming player.


Michael Daves Jacob Blickenstaff

Every Tuesday night when he’s not on tour, you can find guitarist Michael Daves performing at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City, his home base of seven years. Sleep With One Eye Open, his 2011 album with Chris Thile, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. The following is in his words, as told to photographer Jacob Blickenstaff.

“Having a weekly gig is almost like going to church. There is a ritual aspect to it.”

I love Nashville, but I’ve never considered moving there. It’s a little set in its ways, and I also feel like the bluegrass community is too concerned with chasing and trying to sound like commercial country music. I think most young, cosmopolitan musicians are not interested in that pursuit. Most of what I’m interested in in the way of bluegrass happened 40 or 50 years ago, and most of what I’m interested in with music now is happening in New York. There are a lot of people here who’ve grown up in, or come out of, the bluegrass community who are now doing other things—The Punch Brothers, Chris Thile, Sarah Jarosz just moved here. There’s a critical mass. New arrivals can feel at home and attend bluegrass jams, but no one is giving you the hairy eyeball if you do something outside of the traditional bluegrass fold.

There are old folkies who have been in New York since the folk revival and all the jams that used to happen in Washington Square. The Greenbriar Boys, the first non-Southern professional bluegrass band, started playing in New York in the late ’50s—bluegrass had only formed in the mid-to-late ’40s. Tony Trishka, Andy Statman, and Kenny Kosek were in various bands like Breakfast Special and Country Cooking. They were doing this progressive take on bluegrass in the ’70s that in those days was pretty out there. Tommy Ramone lives upstate now and has a bluegrass duo called Uncle Monk—he plays mandolin and they play Monroe Brothers-type stuff.

Having a weekly gig is almost like going to church. There is a ritual aspect to it. It’s a release for whatever has gone on in my life that week. I know I can just show up on Tuesday night and let it out. I don’t tour a lot, I have a family, and I teach and I’m devoted to those things. But if I’m on the road and not doing a Tuesday night at the Rockwood, I’ll start to feel uncomfortable, like I’ve broken the routine and something is wrong.

Listen: Daves kicks down with banjo player Noam Pikelny.

“Contact” is an occasional series of artist portraits and interviews by Jacob Blickenstaff.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate