Biography

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THREE BELLS

Release Date: September 16, 2014
Three Bells is an historic collaboration between Dobro masters Jerry Douglas (13-time Grammy winner and three-time Country Music Association Musician of the Year, dubbed by James Taylor “the Muhammad Ali of the Dobro”), Mike Auldridge (1970’s pioneer, member of The Seldom Scene, and sideman for Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt,) and Rob Ickes of Blue Highway, the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the International Bluegrass Music Association.

Three Bells finds these master musicians employing their prodigious talents to create a set of spare, emotionally-affecting instrumental performances of original tunes and venerable pop and country numbers. Three Bells is these musicians' first work together since 1994's Grammy-winning The Great Dobro Sessions, and features the final recordings of Douglas' longtime friend and mentor Auldridge, who passed away shortly after the sessions were completed.

In a career that spans four decades and encompasses over 2000 recordings, Jerry Douglas has more than earned his status as one of the world's most celebrated musicians.

In addition to his instrumental mastery, the 13-time Grammy winner and three-time Country Music Association Musician of the Year—who has been described as "my favorite musician" by John Fogerty and "the Muhammad Ali of the Dobro" by James Taylor—has established a reputation as a ceaselessly inventive recording artist who has drawn from a bottomless well of rootsy styles to create a consistently compelling string of solo albums and collaborative projects.

Douglas' new Rounder release Three Bells—a historic collaboration with fellow Dobro masters Mike Auldridge and Rob Ickes—marks a personally-charged landmark in his expansive body of work. In addition to marking the three musicians' first work together since 1994's Grammy-winning The Great Dobro Sessions, Three Bells features the final recordings of Douglas' longtime friend and mentor Auldridge, who passed away on December 28, 2012, shortly after the recording sessions were completed.

Auldridge's pioneering work in the 1970s with the Seldom Scene helped to expand bluegrass' musical horizons, while his work as a sideman with artists such as Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt helped introduce the Dobro to a new generation of listeners. He also served as an inspirational role model for multiple generations of younger musicians, including Douglas and Ickes.

Douglas and Auldridge forged a friendship early on, and had often talked about recording together again when their schedules allowed. Their long-simmering plans took on a new level of urgency when Auldridge was diagnosed with cancer. Douglas took steps to reactivate their collaboration, bringing in Rob Ickes, another Auldridge acolyte whose work as a solo artist and with the group Blue Highway has established him as one of the instrument's foremost practitioners.

"The goal was not necessarily to make a record," Douglas explains. "The idea was simply to record some things together, because we needed to, and if there was time and we were able to get enough done, maybe it would become a record. Fortunately, that's how it worked out."

"I know that Jerry and Mike had talked for years about recording together," Ickes affirms, adding, "I actually remember reading an article as a kid, where they mentioned that they were planning on doing something together. Glad they waited 'til I was old enough to partake!"

"It was important to me to do right by Mike," Douglas states, "so we started out with the intention that this would be all about him, and that we would play what he wanted to play. We went into it a little tentatively, not knowing how far we could push him under the circumstances. But Mike played as good as I have ever heard him play, and he was the most gung-ho of the three of us. And that enthusiasm drove Rob and me to raise our own bars to keep up with him."

"The initial idea was just to have some fun and hang out with Mike," says Ickes. "But after the first day of recording, I think we were all surprised at how musical the results were. "

Indeed, Three Bells finds these master musicians employing their prodigious talents to create a set of spare, emotionally affecting instrumental performances of original tunes as well as some venerable pop and country numbers. Selections include "For Buddy," which Auldridge adapted from am exercise originated by Nashville pedal steel legend Buddy Emmons, the early Tin Pan Alley hit "Silver Threads Among The Gold" and the sentimental title track, best known to Americans in the Browns' hit 1959 country version but originally a French pop standard, "Les Trois Cloches," recorded by Edith Piaf, the Andrews Sisters and others.

Three Bells also features a memorable solo piece by each participant, namely Douglas' playful "The Perils of Private Mulvaney," Ickes' meditative "The Message," and Auldridge's poignant medley of the beloved pop standards "'Till There Was You/Moon River." While those tracks demonstrate the individual skills which have made each musician a potent individual force, it is the chemistry and camaraderie of their group efforts that make Three Bells a memorable experience.

"There's no pyrotechnics or flash in the playing, " Douglas reports. "We could have made this a shootout, but that's not what it was about. Our attitude was, if this is the last thing Mike is going to do, then it has to be outstanding, so we were not going to let him down."

"Mike was having such a great time," says Ickes. "Music was his life, and he was so happy to be making this record. He told us several times that he knew that this would be his last recording and that he was honored that it would be with us. I know Jerry and I felt equally honored to make this recording with him."

Although Three Bells' unconventional three-Dobro lineup might have proved unwieldy in lesser hands, Auldridge, Douglas and Ickes interact with an effortless rapport that keeps their performances graceful and understated.

"I thought it would be challenging, having three Dobros together, but this was one of the easiest recordings I've ever made," says Ickes. "Mike and I originally thought that Jerry was a little off his rocker to not use a backing band. But there was something special in how the three of us were interacting musically. Even though it was three of the same instrument—and a fretless instrument at that—there was an intelligent conversation occurring, not just three people trying to talk over each other. "

"Because it was the three of us, we knew how to stay out of each other's way," Douglas notes.

Such versatility and flexibility have been consistent hallmarks of Jerry Douglas' remarkable career, whether he's working as a solo artist, band member, collaborator or session musician. His fluent, seamless playing graces albums by artists as diverse as Garth Brooks, Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, John Fogerty, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs, Yo-Yo Ma, Phish, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and the Chieftains, as well as the eight-million-plus selling soundtrack, Where Art Thou? its spinoff live disc Down from the Mountain, and the soundtrack to the Robert Duvall film Get Low.

As a producer, he has helmed albums by such notable acts as the Del McCoury Band, Maura O'Connell, Jesse Winchester and the Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Douglas has also been a member of such groups as the Whites, J.D. Crowe and the New South, the Country Gentlemen, Strength in Numbers and Elvis Costello's Sugarcanes. Since 1998, he has been a key member of Rounder labelmate Alison Krauss's award-winning band Union Station, touring extensively and playing on a series of platinum albums, and has spent several years as co-music director of the acclaimed BBC Scotland TV series Transatlantic Sessions, which teams American roots musicians and singers with their Celtic counterparts.

Along the way, he's received a dizzying assortment of awards and accolades, including 13 Grammys, three CMA Musician of the Year awards, the Country Music Hall of Fame Artist in Residence honor, the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship and the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, along with too many IBMA awards to count.

Since releasing his first solo LP in 1979, Douglas has built an impressive catalogue of his own projects, including 15 under his own name and many more with a wide array of collaborators. For nearly two decades, he was Nashville's most in-demand session Dobroist, but in the late '90s he chose to abdicate his session career in order to focus on more creatively fulfilling musical pursuits.
That decision proved to be a crucial one, allowing Douglas to spread his musical wings on such acclaimed solo releases as 1998's Restless on the Farm, 2002's Lookout For Hope, 2005's Best Kept Secret, 2008's Glide and 2012's Traveler. The latter was one of Douglas' most audaciously eclectic projects to date, with the artist traveling around the world to record with the likes of Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Mumford & Sons, Keb' Mo', Dr. John and Del McCoury.

The restless creative spirit that continues to propel Jerry Douglas forward is present throughout Three Bells.

"While we were in the studio, I kept thinking 'Why didn't we do this before?,'" Douglas recalls. "We should have done it a lot sooner, though perhaps it wasn't meant to happen until it did. In any event, I am very proud the work that we did together and the spirit that was captured in these sessions. Best of all, it raised Mike up and made him feel better for awhile, and that was the cherry on top."