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16-time Grammy winner Jerry Douglas graces 60th Cambridge Folk Festival line-up




Dobro master Jerry Douglas is known as a highly-skilled and popular collaborator, and the Nashville-based musician has worked with countless other top names in a variety of genres for the best part of 50 years.

Douglas’ musical output incorporates elements of country, bluegrass, rock, jazz, blues, and Celtic, and the well-travelled artist is bringing the famed Transatlantic Sessions, which he co-fronts with Shetland fiddle virtuoso Aly Bain, to this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival.

Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi

The 16-time Grammy winner was speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in the state capital of Tennessee, having performed at the ROMP Music Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, where it was 97 degrees, the week before (“I think I’m still getting over that one!”).

At the festival in the city of Owensboro, where the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame is also located, Jerry played with a number of acts, including Leftover Salmon, Dierks Bentley, and Sierra Hull – “just about everybody that was at that festival!” he laughs, adding that he started out at the event playing with his band, The Earls of Leicester.

Jerry, 68, who is also a key member of Alison Krauss’ backing band Union Station, believes he’s played the Cambridge Folk Festival “maybe two or three times”.

“The first time I remember being there was with [bluegrass star] Peter Rowan,” he says, “and that’s where I met Aly Bain and [Transatlantic Sessions regular] Phil Cunningham for the first time – in the hotel.

“Somebody had left the Guinness taps on in the hotel when they closed the bar, and we found out! It was a hilarious evening!

“And another thing I remember from that festival is getting into a transport van with [late legendary Texan singer-songwriter] Townes Van Zandt.

“And he started into this long… I don’t know if he was making this up as he went along, or he was reciting something, but he recited the entire 15-minute trip over to the festival – and then as soon as he got out of the van, it all just stopped! He was an entertaining guy.”

Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi

Jerry, who is hoping to reconnect with other musicians he knows while at Cherry Hinton Hall, including Robert Plant – even though the former Led Zeppelin frontman is set to perform the day before – remembers the crowd at the Folk Festival as being “great” and adds: “Why wouldn’t it be?

“It’s a landmark, that festival, everyone wants to play Cambridge Folk Festival, and I’m right in there with ’em.”

To any Alison Krauss & Union Station fans reading this, you’ll be pleased to hear – as I was – that the band have two albums “that are just about ready to go” and that they have a tour planned for next year which will hopefully include some UK dates (fingers crossed).

“I love playing to UK crowds, I really do,” says Jerry, who also has some solo dates lined up here in the UK, and in Ireland.

“I love playing over there as much as I can get there – that’s why I’m doing this little solo tour” (see jerrydouglas.com/tour/ for details).

Transatlantic Sessions, which Jerry has previously brought to Cambridge – though not to the Folk Festival – celebrates the rich traditions that connect Scotland, Ireland and the US.

Essentially a large house band, Transatlantic Sessions boasts an outstanding line-up of artists and guest musicians.

This time around it will include Tommy Emmanuel, Karen Matheson, Aoife O’Donovan, and duo Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves on banjo and fiddle. The pair won Instrumental Group of the Year and Traditional Album of the Year at the 2023 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

“We did one [Transatlantic Sessions] in February,” explains Jerry, “it starts in Glasgow and then moves… they’re tours now; instead of being filmed we’re doing nine or 10-day tours, and we always finish in London.

“Then everybody flies their different ways and that show never happens again, but we’re going to try to reprise that show somewhat.

“We’re bringing in Aoife O’Donovan and Tommy Emmanuel, and Karen Matheson will be there with Capercaillie…

“The festival, to get us all there at once, sort of hired all of us in our separate entities, like John Doyle and [John] McCusker and [Michael] McGoldrick will be there.

“And they’re part of our band, they sit down with us, they’re part of the band the Transatlantic band – but so is Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, they’re also in our band now…

“So it’s really great, on one side of me I’ve got all this American music, on the other side I’ve got all this Celtic music.

“Not on purpose is it divided that way, but I hear the Celtic fiddle tunes, which are amazing, all night long and just marvel at this stuff.

“And then when Tatiana stomps down on some Appalachian hoedown fiddle tune that I’ve known since birth, I just go nuts. I hear that and I start shouting ‘America! America!’ I get all patriotic!”

Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi
Jerry Douglas. Picture: Scott Simontacchi

That said, the very affable bandleader concludes: “I love coming over there because I feel like I belong there, sometimes more than I do here – partly because of my last name – and I feel like I’m walking places that my ancestors walked hundreds of years ago. So for me it’s fascinating in that way.”

Transatlantic Sessions will be headlining the Cambridge Folk Festival, in a performance billed as an “exclusive UK Festival appearance”, on Saturday, 27 July.

[Read more: Ralph McTell to headline opening day of 2024 Cambridge Folk Festival]

For more information on the festival, visit cambridgelive.org.uk/folk-festival. For more on Jerry Douglas, check out jerrydouglas.com.



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