A pandemic project that modestly began in Great Britain as an instructional tool for an aspiring guitar picker has grown into a twice-weekly podcast that features interviews with some of the biggest names in bluegrass.
Matt Hutchinson, the host and producer of Bluegrass Jam Along, has been recognized with a Momentum Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association.
“In the middle of the pandemic, I was stuck at home like everybody else was and found myself picking the guitar up again,” Hutchinson says. “So, I started learning fiddle tunes, and I went looking for backing tracks to play along with and couldn't really find what I wanted. I started recording some tracks for myself to play along with, and I thought, well …I wonder if other people might find these useful.” He concluded that they would, and he put them out as a podcast. “And it grew from there.”
Hutchinson, who lives and works in London, says he’s been into music since he was a kid.
“My dad listened to the Beatles a lot, but we also had Johnny Cash records, Buddy Holly, and all sorts of stuff. And in my late teens and early 20s, I got into things like Neil Young and Bob Dylan, Tim Buckley and singer-songwriters. I think it was the Neil Young thing that first got me interested in the sort of more country Americana side of things.”
Hutchinson was considering expanding the podcast to include interviews when he received an interesting email from guitarist Jake Eddy.
“We were in the same guitar Facebook group, and he said, ‘Oh, I've got a record coming out. How about we do an interview for your podcast?” And I was like, Yeah, great, let's do that!’ So, I did that, and then I just carried on. After that, I spoke to Marcel Ardans from the Lessons with Marcel podcast and did an interview with him. The third interview was with guitarist Bryan Sutton. Once you've had Bryan Sutton on your podcast, it becomes a little bit easier to get other people to come on it.”
In a relatively short time—and an ocean away from where most of his interview subjects live—Bluegrass Jam Along has included features with some of the biggest names in the business, including Alison Krauss, Sierra Hull, Chris Eldridge, Sarah Jarosz, and Tim O’Brien. For someone with no formal training as an interviewer, Hutchinson is able to engage his guests in compelling and illuminating conversations.
‘“My day job, which has nothing to do with music at all, involves working in communications. And I've been interviewed a few times for that. And I write quite a lot. I figured I'm curious, and if I ask the questions I want to know the answers to, presumably other people will as well.
“Some musicians just do the rounds and talk about their album and what they're doing now, and you can hear the same interview on four or five different podcasts. I wanted to dig a bit deeper into what makes people tick, what they really care about, and what being a musician means to them and how they feel, rather than what strings they use and what picks they use and that kind of thing.”
Among the most notable Bluegrass Jam Along interviews was with dobroist Jerry Douglas about a concert celebrating Earl Scruggs’s 100th birthday.
“The funny thing is, I interviewed Jerry for that, and we spoke for an hour, and the next day, I realized that all of my side of the conversation had been recorded, but his had not. There had been some sort of tech problem. I emailed back, and Jerry said, not a problem, let's just do it again. And it was a different conversation the second time around. Equally interesting, You could interview Jerry seven days a week and get seven different interviews because he's such a great interview.”
Hutchinson experienced the sense of community, a vital component of the genre, when he made his first trip to the International Bluegrass Music Association conference in 2023.
“I just felt like I'd arrived somewhere that I belonged slightly, which is an odd way to experience basically three days in a conference center in an American city. I just kept bumping into people I'd interviewed. And people who'd listened to the podcast would come up and talk to me. I just felt remarkably connected. And then coming back again this year and being around and meeting people again and just sitting and bumping into people I'd interviewed and sitting and having a drink for 20 minutes, I just felt connected and welcomed and like I belonged. And it's such a powerful feeling whenever you find it.”
Hutchinson produces two weekly episodes: a ten-minute news update called The Bluegrass Briefing and an hour-long interview show. Throughout it all, he’s on his journey into bluegrass and inviting others to join him.
“If I tried to set up a bluegrass podcast that told people what bluegrass was, well, I am the least qualified person in the world to do that. But if I'm trying to do something that explores my curiosity and invites people to come with me and hope they're curious too, then I'm the only person who's qualified to do that the way that I would do it. Hopefully, there's a version of that that other people find interesting.”
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