By Taylor Smith
In what’s becoming an October tradition, New England bluegrass powerhouse Rock Hearts is making its fourth-annual pilgrimage to the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft. The concert on Saturday, Oct. 18 is proudly presented by the Bluegrass Music Association of Maine. The band takes the stage at 7 pm, and fiddle fans can sign up for an afternoon workshop with Rock Hearts’ fiddler Austin Scelzo from 1-3pm.
I recently caught up with Alex MacLeod, Rock Hearts’ guitarist and vocalist, to talk about the band’s close connection with Maine, their long-standing friendship and collaboration with iconic singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards, and what’s behind Alex’s efforts to dig deeper into the history of bluegrass in New England.
TAYLOR: This is the fourth year Rock Hearts will be performing at the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft. What keeps drawing you back?
ALEX: Everything. First of all, it’s a great time for the band to be together. BMAM is so great and gracious with everything from the accommodations to all of the legwork to promote the show. [BMAM board member] John McKusick is a wonderful sponsor of the concert, and the sound guy and the manager of the Center Theatre are just super cool—they’re really good at what they do.
I think the first year was close to selling out, and the second year it was standing room only. That’s what we’re shooting for every year. It’s great, too, because [mandolinist] Bill Thibodeau grew up not too far away from there in Cambridge, Maine. It feels like our biggest following is in Maine, and it’s wonderful because we get to see so many friends and family.
The audience in Dover-Foxcroft is always so amazing. They’re so electric. As a musician, it’s a long night if you play a show and you’re just background music or the audience isn’t really reactive. But the folks at the Center Theatre, man, they just bring it. It’s a lot of fun.
TAYLOR: That’s a long drive from southern new England. Glad you guys are up for making the trip!
ALEX: We actually drive up on Friday and stay over with Jonathan and Sandy Edwards in the Portland area. We have a wonderful hang and visit and do some jamming and do some chatting. That helps to break up the drive. On Saturday, we can sleep in and just take our own sweet time getting up to the Center Theatre.
TAYLOR: How did you guys get to know Jonathan Edwards?
ALEX: Rick Brodsky, our bass player, had toured with Jonathan as his bass player for a while. Probably around 2010, when I was playing with Northern Lights, we did a show at the Jonathan Edwards Winery in Connecticut—no relation to Jonathan the singer, but he does an annual show there. We played with him for a few songs, and I had the opportunity to sing “Don’t Cry Blue” with Jonathan. Fast forward to when we were doing our second album, Wanderlust, and we decided to cover “Don’t Cry Blue.” Rick said, “Hey, Jonathan, check out our recording, what do you think?” And Jonathan was ecstatic. He’s like, “I want in on that.” So sure enough, he records some harmony on it.
Jonathan and Sandy are just the two most genuine, loving, coolest people and they love to host. The first time we did the Dover-Foxcroft show, Jonathan said we could crash at his house. He remembered he wasn’t going to be there—he was playing at the Infinity Hall in Connecticut. He said, “Just go to the house. Help yourselves.” We showed up at 1:30 in the morning and there were two houses at the end of the street, and we didn’t know which one was which. We sent Austin [Scelzo, Rock Hearts’ fiddler] to one of the houses and a guy comes out holstering a gun— he’s a state cop, Jonathan’s neighbor, and he pointed us to Jonathan’s house. Jonathan has just become a dear friend of the band, and when we’re at his place, we can’t not jam together.
TAYLOR: Rock Hearts seems like a tight-knit group. How would you describe the band dynamic?
ALEX: We genuinely have fun with each other as a band. We love each other as brothers. Joe [Deetz, Rock Hearts’ banjo player] puts it the best when he says that we speak the same musical language. With all the bands that we’ve ever been in, this is our favorite band. There’s no ego—we all bring what we can bring. There’s never really contention, never really any kind of strain. We all play off of each other instrumentally and musically and we all love the same stuff.
We’re going to play original music that sounds like Jimmy Martin or Jim & Jesse, or Seldom Scene, or Bluegrass Cardinals. That’s where we go and we all agree. It’s just natural and not a lot of bands have that. We’re super grateful that we get to play music together.
TAYLOR: You guys put on a great show. I love how you always seem to connect with the audience.
ALEX: My very first show that my dad came to was at the Best Western in Keene, N.H., on a Monday night. We played 13 songs. I got off the stage and went to my dad with my chest out, “Hey Dad, what did you think?” He looked at me and goes, “Well, Al, you did 13 songs in that set, nine of them not one guy in your band said anything to the audience for about 30 seconds. I caught you watching Monday Night Football at least three times. If you can’t connect with the audience, you might as well just stay home.”
That was my balloon that popped, and it burned a hole in my heart. I said that anytime I’m playing music now on stage, I perform as if I’ve got friends and family in my living room and it’s just that comfortable. That was a hard lesson I got from my dad, and that’s the same lesson that Sam Tidwell taught Billy.
TAYLOR: How did you get started in bluegrass music?
ALEX: My path was directly descended from my dad, Sandy. My family is from Concord, Massachusetts. Bob French, prior to moving to Maine, lived in Acton, Massachusetts. So, my dad would get to go picking over at Bob’s house when he was a kid. Even when Bob moved to Maine, my dad was still meeting him and playing with him at the Hillbilly Ranch with Herb Applin.
I grew up as a military kid, we moved around a lot, and a lot of the stories my dad told me were about picking with Herb and Bob and Joe Val and Don Stover and Sam and Bob Tidwell. He spoke about these people like they were family. I heard more stories about them than I did my own blood relatives.
When we eventually came back to New England, I think I was about 17, I went to my first Joe Val Bluegrass Festival at Newton North High School when it was a one-day festival and I just kind of fell in love with it.
TAYLOR: You’re working on a super interesting project about bluegrass in new England. What’s the story there?
ALEX: For the last six months or so, I’ve embarked along with Rick Brodsky on this grandiose idea of writing a book about the evolution of bluegrass music in New England. When you think about the history of bluegrass music and all the hubs that were established in the 1940s and 1950s—southern California, the DC/ Maryland area, Ohio, the Tennessee scene—New England since about 1958 was just as entrenched in the scene with Tex Logan and the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover and Joe Val and so many others that came up here to Boston.
When you ask and talk with other people, there was a scene in Vermont, a scene in New Hampshire, a scene in Connecticut, a scene in Maine, and each state has a really distinctly different evolution. I’ve interviewed 10 people so far – bluegrass pioneers that were there, that were rubbing elbows with Sonny Osborne when he came up to visit Bob French in Maine, or when Bill Monroe came up to Barre, Vermont, and met Bill Keith for the first time. I’m hearing these stories from the people that were there and it’s mind-blowing.
After Herb Applin died, the weight of his loss really kicked me and I said, you know, the longer you wait, the fewer of these guys are going to be around. Thankfully, Jim Rooney and Bill Nowlin from Rounder Records have offered to be advisors from behind the scenes. I’m hanging out with Ken Irwin every time I can and picking his brain. It’s really cool to hear from people that were there in the beginning.
TAYLOR: On behalf of new England bluegrass fans, thanks for taking on that project! So what’s next for Rock Hearts?
ALEX: We have a few more shows to do this fall. We’ve got a little mini tour through the Adirondacks with the Adirondack Bluegrass League. We may have a show in December, and then we lay low and we’re getting ready to go down and start working on our fourth project sometime next year. Meanwhile we’re collecting material, listening to a lot of songs. I’m trying to get some writing done so we can have some originals on there.
The Bluegrass Music Association of Maine is proud to present Rock Hearts live at the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft at 7pm on Saturday, Oct. 18. Tickets range from $20-$24 and are available here or by calling 207-564-8943. Rock Hearts’ fiddler Austin Scelzo also will be offering a fiddle workshop from 1pm-3pm on the day of the show. For more details, visit www.austinscelzo.com/fiddle.