Featured Artist
December 18 - 24, 2000

The "Artist of the Week" web site feature highlights a new flatpicking guitarist each week. This weeks featured artist is Jim Hurst. Be sure to visit his web site at www.jimhurst.com.

	Jim Hurst: Working Man's Guitar
	Reprinted from Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, Volume 3, Number 2 (January/February 1999) by Chad Ward
To view products by this artist, Click Here.

Jim Hurst has been part of a world that few musicians will ever see, the high-flying world of big-name country music. He has played dozens of television specials and hundreds of sold-out arenas. It is a tribute to the man and to the enduring nature of bluegrass that he has returned to the music that he has loved since he was a child. Having spent years traveling and playing lead guitar for country stars Holly Dunn and Trisha Yearwood, Jim has returned to his bluegrass roots as guitarist for Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band. Those roots also show strongly in his debut CD, Open Window. And as soon as you hear Jim's jaw-dropping arrangement of the Monroe classic "Wheel Hoss" or his tasty flatpicking original "Alarm Clock," you'll know that country's loss is our gain.

Hurst was born in Middlesboro, Kentucky, right in the heart of bluegrass country. Like many Southerners, his family had migrated to Toledo, Ohio, in search of work in the factories. But they were visiting Kentucky when Jim was born. "I guess my timing was right," he says. Although he was raised in Toledo, Hurst spent most of his summers in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee. "I grew up in Toledo but had more fun in Kentucky because of the open spaces and the closeness of my aunts, uncles and cousins. I love the mountains, the people and the time I spent there."

Music was a big part of the Hurst family. "My mother didn't play an instrument, but she loved music and would have the radio on all the time. My father and my uncle had a duet, a Louvin Brothers sort of thing. They didn't play professionally really, just for the love of it." Jim credits his dad as his first musical influence, "because (in him) I could see somebody making music." He also credits his father for his own wide-ranging musical tastes. "My dad loved traditional country and bluegrass, but he appreciated all kinds of music. He would listen to everybody from the Stanley Brothers to Simon and Garfunkle. I remember that he really liked a couple of songs by the Lovin' Spoonful. He could even appreciate Elvis at a time when folks of his generation were up in arms about Elvis gyrating and swinging his hips. That helped me to be open minded about music as well."

"My brother Alvie is probably my second biggest influence after Dad. We never played music in a 'band' but I learned a ton from him, most importantly how to groove and play with style and taste."

At age four, Jim got his first guitar, a Gene Autry Silvertone "with a ridin', ropin' cowboy painted on the front." Jim still has the guitar and fulfilled a lifelong dream when he used it on "Crazy Locomotion Blues" on his new CD. "I love that guitar," he says. "And it still sounds pretty good!"

"I learned a lot from my dad. The first real song that he taught me was 'Wildwood Flower.' He said that if I was going to play guitar, I would have to learn 'Wildwood Flower.' We listened a lot to Ralph Stanley, and George Shuffler's guitar playing really caught my ear. Of course it was a while before I knew who was playing. A lot of those old albums didn't list any credits; there was just a big advertisement on the back. If it hadn't been for George Shuffler, we would all just be rhythm players right now."

He also credits Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Don Reno and Red Smiley as some of his early influences. "Earl Scruggs playing guitar with fingerpicks blew me away," he says.

"Then I heard Doc Watson play with Flatt & Scruggs and that really opened my eyes. I also loved Chet Atkins and Merle Travis. Later on I discovered players like Clarence White and, much later, Tony Rice. I listened to each guitarist with a fresh ear. I loved Clarence White's anticipation of the chord changes and his overall expression. Doc, to me, has the greatest tone and touch on a dreadnaught guitar. Tony has probably got the best right hand in the business, and his left hand . . . well, that's a whole other page on its own."

But in his mid-teens Hurst found his biggest influence, Jerry Reed. Reed's playing opened new frontiers for the young guitarist. "That was the first really complicated guitar playing that I'd heard. It was amazing. I wanted to learn everything that he had ever done."

Jim honed his chops and even got to meet his hero backstage one night. "I wanted to play for Jerry Reed," says Jim. "And I was crushed because he didn't have time and told me, 'I'm flattered, son, but no one will ever pay you to be Jerry Reed. But if you're good enough to play my stuff, you've really got something; use it to play what you create.' And he was absolutely right. It just took me a while to realize it. It was probably the best advice I've ever gotten."

After high school Jim began driving a truck full time and was playing bluegrass, blues, and country in four different bands, playing a lot of wedding receptions and parties. His bluegrass band, Raisin River, consisted of Jim on mandolin, Tim Ellis (formerly of Jim & Jesse) on banjo, Jim's brother Larry on bass and Mike Wilhoyte (of Roanoke) on guitar. "It was tough," Jim said. "I would be out on the road, sometimes for two weeks at a time, so we never found time to practice. There were a couple of shows where I was late because I had literally just stepped out of the cab of the truck and changed clothes before I got on stage."

Between 1983 and 1987 Jim was working for a trucking company whose schedule allowed him to be home on weekends. Not only did he have more time to play music, but he also now had the time to spend with his family that he had been missing. Jim's wife, Judy, is directly responsible for their move to Nashville. The trucking company was reducing its staff and Jim took a voluntary layoff. "Judy told me that if I was ever going to try it, now would be the time." So Jim went to Nashville with a demo tape and landed a contract with an independent country label. Encouraged, he moved to Nashville in June of 1988. He didn't have a place to stay so he slept in the record label offices. He made money by winning guitar contests around the region. He kept just enough to feed himself and sent the rest home to Toledo. His wife, son and daughter, then just 7 and 9, moved down in October of that year.

However, Jim's record deal went sour. "We had found a little house to rent and sold our place in Toledo. Neither of us had a job then. It was bare bones for a while. I wouldn't want to live it over again, but it was definitely a learning experience. I realized quickly that I had to jump right in the middle and make as big a splash as I could."

Making a splash takes a while in Nashville. Jim's break came in 1990 when a friend arranged an audition for Jim with Holly Dunn, who was looking for a new guitar player. He won the job and started a two-year stint with Dunn. He played the Grand Ole Opry, TNN's Nashville Now program, and Austin City Limits in addition to a hectic touring schedule.

In 1992 country superstar Trisha Yearwood was looking to add another guitar player to her band. Tammy Rogers, who was playing fiddle for Yearwood at the time, recommended Jim, whom she had met while she was playing with Dusty Miller. Jim auditioned and got the job. He started by playing lead acoustic guitar and singing harmony with Yearwood. Eventually he had expanded his role in the band to include playing some electric guitar as well. Jim's soaring tenor ensured that he got the choice harmony parts. "I always had to sing the tough ones," he says. "If you hear Vince Gill's part or Don Henley's part on the record, those were the parts I sang in the show." Yearwood was named the Academy of Country Music's female vocalist of the year in 1992, the year Jim joined the band. He has a lot of admiration and respect for Trisha. In a 1993 interview with The Toledo Blade, Jim said, "She treats us more like brothers and sisters than her employees. She has a great fresh talent. She's got a lot of spirit. It's been a real pleasure to work for her."

Jim refined his role as a top Nashville sideman during the year and a half he toured with Yearwood. "To be a good sideman you really have to know how to blend with the artist. You have to know your gear inside and out and understand exactly how to get the sound you need on stage." For example, Jim's prized Gallagher guitar didn't work well on stage with five other instruments and a dozen stage monitors. "It was too resonant, too nice," says Hurst. "I had to go with something a little more dead just so it didn't feed back in the monitors."

According to Hurst, a good sideman also has be able to read a Nashville numbers chart and to have his parts down cold. You also have to be able to play them while "selling the show."

"Selling the show means that you have to look like you are having a good time. Ninety-nine percent of the time you are having a good time. It's a lot of fun being up there. But the fans are there to hear the star and to forget about their bad day. They don't want to know when the guitar player is having a bad day. You can't let that show through. That is not what they are paying to see."

With Yearwood, Jim's diverse musical tastes proved to be an asset. He would use whatever technique worked best for a particular song, playing some fingerstyle, flatpicking others and playing some with a hybrid fingers and flatpick approach.

You have to take yourself out of the mix, forget about yourself a little bit," he says. "Playing guitar in that situation is like singing harmony. You really have to work to make sure that you blend with the rest of the band. Trisha allowed us a lot of freedom in how we got a particular sound as long as it was pretty close to what was on the album."

Jim's other talents proved to be helpful as well, especially his experience as a truck driver. He still had his commercial driver's license and frequently drove the bus on the long trips between cities. "I'd driven those long hauls before, so I knew what it was like for the drivers. It made me feel a lot better if I knew they were rested, so whenever they needed a nap, I'd just jump in the driver's seat and take the wheel."

"That was the poshest gig I've ever had," says Hurst. "It was great. We had a big, brand new bus. People would load and unload all the equipment for us. They would set up the stage and the instruments. All we had to do was walk out on stage and play great music every night. We would do these double bill tours, so I even got to play with Travis Tritt a couple of times." It does have its downside, however. "If you're not careful, it can give you a false sense of royalty. It can make you think you are something you're not," he cautions.

After coming off the road in 1995, Jim began selling real estate in Nashville and taking Chris Jones' place as guitarist for the McCarter Sisters when Jones was busy with his own band. The arrangement turned into a regular gig until the McCarter Sisters broke up. Jim was also playing with Old Hickory, a bluegrass band he had put together in Nashville with Gene Wooten, Vic Jordan, Charlie Derrington and Kent Blanton. Then he got the call from Claire Lynch.

Keith Little, who was playing with Ricky Skaggs, had helped out with Claire's Friends for a Lifetime album, so Claire called him when Kenny Smith made the decision to move to the Lonesome River Band. Keith had seen Jim play with Holly Dunn. He was starting to concentrate on his own music at the time and told Claire that he thought Hurst could handle the job.

Jim was already familiar with Claire's music. He had heard her first album in 1986 and had been a fan ever since. The McCarter Sisters had also done a couple of Claire Lynch's songs in their sets. He auditioned in a Nashville hotel room the night before Claire and the rest of the band had to fly out west to finish a tour. His solid playing and strong harmony voice would have been enough, but it was "Wheel Hoss" that sealed the deal.

"Wheel Hoss" is a driving hybrid of fingerpicking and flatpicking. "I play the opening part fingerstyle, but switch to flatpicking with the thumbpick for some parts in the song. I had always wanted to create a song that had the bass, the melody and the rhythm all moving at the same time. 'Wheel Hoss' was something that I had started working out with Mike Wilhoyte when I was with Raisin River. It evolved into the piece I'm playing now. Claire and Larry say it was that song that helped them make up their minds."

Jim had never considered himself a great flatpicker. It was a style he played well, but not exclusively like many flatpickers do. "I really had to practice after Claire called. I've had to spend a lot of time working to make sure that my tone, volume and speed are there." Anyone who has seen Hurst on stage with the Front Porch String Band knows that the practice has paid off handsomely. Hurst's flatpicking style is fluid and dynamic with a strong sense of melody. "I really want to be identifiable when I play, but I also want to be true to the melody of the song rather than playing flashy licks. To be a great flatpicker takes a lot of effort and a lot of hours. I really appreciate that, especially when I hear players like Tim Stafford. To me he is one of the best players today. As soon as he starts playing, you know immediately who it is."

When he took the job with Claire Lynch, Hurst was concerned about being accepted by the bluegrass community. "With my country background and my fingerstyle background I was a little worried," he says. "But the bluegrass community has really accepted me. That is the great thing about this music. You have folks like Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley keeping the tradition alive and then you have people like Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas really expanding the boundaries of the music. There is a real openness in bluegrass now that I think is helping to increase its popularity. New fans are getting to Bill Monroe through David Grisman's playing. It is a wonderful time for bluegrass. The music is really growing in depth and breadth. Missy Raines and I got three standing ovations at the Roots & Branches concert we did at the IBMA, and the music we are playing runs the gamut from bluegrass to jazz. The fans have been great."

"There is a wonderful camaraderie in bluegrass that I don't think you'll find anywhere else, both between the artists and between the artists and the fans. I'm a big fan myself, so I really appreciate that about the music. When we're on tour, I really enjoy playing festivals because you get to see other acts that you never get a chance to see."

Tim Stafford said in the liner notes to Open Window, "I first heard Jim with Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band, the job which has given him his largest exposure thus far to the bluegrass world. With Claire, Jim threw out impossible leads effortlessly, while just as effortlessly singing behind her with an always-on-pitch baritone. He sounds like no one else. Unlike most modern flatpickers, Jim comes from a background in finger-picking, which allows him to quote from country masters like Jerry Reed and Chet Atkins and gives him the versatility to do things most flatpickers would never think possible on the instrument. I can't remember a fresher sound in bluegrass guitar in years."

That freshness comes from Hurst's approach to the guitar. He has a strong right hand attack but the breaks he plays are fluid and lyrical. "I don't want to hear the sound of the pick," he says. "I want it to sound like the note is just jumping out of the guitar. So I don't want a very hard or thick pick." That is why he uses a Dunlop Delrin .96 pick. "They have a smooth texture and they are very forgiving. The Dunlops really respond well. And they're cheap! If I lose one, I'm only out a quarter."

Hurst has taught advanced guitar at Laurie Lewis's Bluegrass at the Beach camp and at the Augusta Heritage workshops. His advice to flatpickers is, "the three Ts: timing, taste, and tone."

"Flatpickers have a lot of energy. It is an exhilarating experience playing a fast break, searching out and finding new territory. But a lot of times you need to slow down a little and concentrate on your tone and make sure you're playing in time. I also tell people to work on scales and finger exercises, not only for the sake of learning scales, but to get your fingers in synch with your picking hand. That's how you get a smooth, legato sound, by having your fingers lift off the previous note just as you are picking the next one. It takes a lot of practice and coordination to keep your fingers in synch so every note flows properly. The more you practice, the clearer you get. The more familiar you are with the neck, the more you can do. It leads you into new ideas."

"Taste comes from having respect for the melody. There is a certain amount of music that has to be there for you to have 'Cabin Home on the Hill,' for example. Once you go past a certain point, you don't have the song any more. That's the real challenge of this music, working within the form, but stating how you hear the melody. A lot of times I'll end up with more of a counter-melody, but it still works within the parameters of the tune. Some people like to play patterns when they improvise, which is okay, but I like to find the melody and then play around it."

"When I play a break I try to build in dynamics. There needs to be some tension. I also try not be a lick player. Having a big vocabulary of generic licks can be a safety blanket, but it leads to a sameness in your playing. If you play a particular lick over a particular chord change in one song, then play the same lick three or four songs later you really haven't done anything to make either song special. After a while all your breaks start to sound the same."

"That is another great thing about playing with Claire," he says. "On a big country tour you carry your own stage, your own lights, everything. So the whole setup is the same from night to night. The only thing different is the color of the seats in the hall. The shows are very choreographed, with the same set list every night. You can sometimes feel like a human jukebox. Somebody puts a quarter in your pocket and punches your nose and you play all the hits. Traveling with Claire and the Front Porch String Band is the exact opposite. There is no light show. There are no sound effects. This is the real thing. And we have a lot of freedom up there. I play different breaks every show. Sometimes somebody will yell out a song from the audience and we'll play it. It's a great thing to have that kind of flexibility on stage. It is very freeing as a player. Claire is really wonderful about that."

"I try to be true to the music of the person I'm playing with. I improvise most of my breaks. I don't have anything worked out ahead of time except for a couple of the songs from Silver and Gold that need to be close to what is on the record. But I always try to support the music of whoever I'm playing with. With Claire I have a lot of freedom. I play something different every day just to keep myself musically in balance, but everything I play is there to support her music. Or, for example, if I'm playing with John Cowan, on certain songs I try to keep Pat Flynn in mind. Pat and John played together for so long that his style is a big part of the music. I don't play Pat's breaks, but I keep him in mind and play something that he might have played if he had been there. It lends more credibility to the music."

"You have to have a feel for what to play, but you also have to know what not to play. There is a structure to bluegrass that you have to respect. I listen to a lot of different music. Right now I'm listening to a lot of jazz and new acoustic music, people like Phil Keagy, Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery. I enjoy it, but I am also listening for their approaches to a song, their technique. That really stretches my musical understanding. But a lot of that is inappropriate for a bluegrass song. If you get too far out into left field, you're not playing bluegrass any more."

"To me what is great about being a guitar player is that it is as much a joy to back up as it is to take a ride or a break. It's like playing a team game. That is the essence of music, communicating, trying to help the people you are playing with sound better."

Jim has been with Claire Lynch for three years and played on her 1997 Grammy-nominated album, Silver and Gold. With the Front Porch String Band, Jim has played the Ryman Auditorium as well as the 1996 Olympic Festival. He and the rest of the FPSB were featured in Claire's CMT/TNN video "My Heart is a Diamond" and have appeared on TNN's Prime Time Country, the Grand Ole Opry Live, and This Week in Country Music.

He says, however, that 1998 has been his best year ever. Claire Lynch has cut back her touring schedule, playing 12 to 14 dates a year, so Jim and Missy Raines, the FPSB's bassist and 1998 IBMA Bass Player of the Year, have formed a musical partnership. "Missy is a great bassist and a wonderful person. This is one of the best musical experiences I've ever been involved in," says Hurst. "We are playing acoustic music with bluegrass, roots and jazz and blues influences. The music is almost effortless. Very seldom do we have a problem working out an arrangement for a song. We are never in each other's way, which allows us both a great deal of freedom in our playing. We're very respectful of each other. What is so wonderful is the way the songs take on a different character each time we play them. The duo format really allows us both to explore, so the songs change on the fly depending on how we feel that night."

He has also released his debut solo album, Open Window, a collection that ranges from a soulful rendition of James Taylor's "Nothing Like a Hundred Miles" to the bluegrass classic "Tall Pines." "I've never wanted to be pigeonholed into one thing," he says. "I like to adapt to different kinds of music. I've been in bands for so long that I really wanted something that said, 'This is Jim Hurst music.' If I had a musical idea, I would just do it. This was a real creative release for me. I also wanted my album to be a musical forum for the players. I have some great players on the record and I really wanted to turn them loose."

"Claire's Silver and Gold was a great learning experience for me. She allowed us a lot of creative freedom and input into the songs. From that experience I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do in the studio, which was a real blessing when it came to making my own album."

Hurst credits Claire Lynch with much of his current success. "Claire has opened a door for me that allows me to do what I love for a living. If you look at the cover of Open Window, you'll notice that I'm sitting on a front porch. I don't have a front porch on my house, so we had to use somebody else's. But I wanted one on the cover as a way of saying thank you to Claire and the Front Porch String Band."

In addition to his own CD, Hurst has been busy in the studio with other artists as well. He played on Missy Raines' solo debut My Place in the Sun, played on Suzanne Thomas's Rounder release, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts, and played on Sara Evans' RCA release, No Place that Far, in addition to several small, independent releases.

His most recent recording project was with fellow Front Porch String Band member, Missy Rains. They recorded a duet album entitled "Two".

"I feel really blessed. I'm having a great time playing music that I love with players that I admire. And I expect next year to be even better."

Gear Notes:

Jim Hurst plays a 1986 Gallagher Doc Watson model with voiced bracing, a mahogany back and sides and a spruce top. "I love this guitar," he says. "It is the best guitar I've ever played." He has a Fishman pickup installed but tries to use it only to feed the monitors on stage. "I really like to work a mic on stage. It is a real art form. Unfortunately, because of the variety of places we play, I have to use the pickup more than I would like. Stage volume, a bad stage layout, or an inexperienced engineer can make it tough to get adequate volume without feeding back if you just use the mic." He is exploring a dual pickup and internal microphone system in order to get a more natural tone.

While the Gallagher is his "cover-all-the-bases guitar," Jim also plays a custom Brazilian rosewood dreadnaught made by luthier Darren Perry of Tullahoma, Tennessee. "Darren works out of a music store and shop called Horns, Strings & Things in Tullahoma. The guitar he made for me is gorgeous, but I don't always take it out on the road. I use it primarily as a fingerpicking guitar."

The guitar on "Crazy Locomotion Blues" is a Sears Silvertone Gene Autry model that he received from his uncle as a Christmas present when Jim was four.

Hurst endorses Fishman pickups and D'Addario strings. He uses D'Addario phosphor bronze medium or bluegrass gauge sets. He also has an endorsement with Gibson. He uses .96 Dunlop Delrin picks.

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