Hillbilly Wine
Larry Keel and Charles Humphrey lll are consummate professional touring musicians, band leaders and composers, each of whom has dedicated themselves to a life in music. Both have won Grammy Awards for their song-writing, and both have a deep love for family, a passion for fishing and a bona fide knack for word crafting.
Charles recalls their first meeting occurring at The Cave in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1995, after Larry had recently won the Telluride (Bluegrass Festival) Guitar Contest for the second time. As the years passed their paths continued to cross in interesting ways. A great friend of Charles and fellow North Carolinian banjo player Andy Thorn (Leftover Salmon) began performing with Larry while still in college, and that brought more opportunities to get to know each other. Larry and Charles’ connection also runs through mandolin player and vocalist Mark Schimick, who spent several years playing in Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, and has now been in Songs from the Road Band with Charles for nearly 10 years.
Over the decades, Larry and Charles have met up at festivals, picking circles and stages across the country. Every opportunity for the friends to hang out, play music, have some laughs and share life stories has led them to becoming song-writing collaborators when they can squeeze in precious time to create together. The result of one such session is “Hillbilly Wine”, a waltz-time, traditional bluegrass song that Charles says ‘transports you straight to a back-forty bonfire, ‘ where friends gather to have a good time drinking and carousing in a light-hearted, spirited way.
“Charles and I wanted to tell the story of mountain people and the way they like to blow off steam”, says Larry. According to the call to action in “Hillbilly Wine”, the way to do that is to meet up with your buddies at your special spot in the deep mountain hollow where you can loosen up, be yourself and whoop and holler without bothering anyone. And partaking in a confidence-boosting libation like ‘hillbilly wine’ brings out the fun and freer side of a person’s personality. There’s risks to that joyful imbibing, however. As with most pleasing and powerful things, too much can do damage. So, as the lyrics advise “watch what you do!”
Stylistically, the song has a very traditional, 1st-generation Bluegrass feel reminiscent of the King of Bluegrass, Jimmy Martin. This approach is realized with the support of multi-Grammy and countless other awards winners Ronnie McCoury on harmony vocals and Jason Carter on fiddle. Larry Keel Experience band members Winston Mitchell and Justin Doyle round out the ensemble on mandolin and bass, respectively.
Listening to “Hillbilly Wine” it’s easy to sense the joy and naturalness that Larry and Charles infuse into their songwriting together. The mutual respect and enthusiasm they have for co-creating is palpable. As Charles says, “…collaborating with (Larry) is electric. (He) has a unique ability to lift up audiences through both his songwriting and live performances.” For Larry, writing with Charles is a “fun and fluid process”, because “he has honed his craft of songwriting to a point where it makes every line together as if it was absolutely meant to be.” A toast to artistic satisfaction is in order! Cheers!