Not Too Far From the Tree

Yeah.

Well, the fact that you get to be a part of that new Brian Sutton album, I think is really cool because as many of our listeners may know, Brian did this record years ago, I think back in around 06, called Not Too Far From the Tree, where he had sort of, you know, the masters.

He had George Shuffler.

He had Tony Rice.

He calls them musical conversations.

20 years ago, he released his first collection of these get-togethers under the title Not Too Far From the Tree on the late great Sugar Hill Records.

It included tracks with Norman Blake, David Greer, Ricky Skaggs, and his first guitar hero, Doc Watson.

Now, you may well have discerned that we've been listening to Doc Watson here, and this is from the new Roots and Branches collection, Merle Haggard's Workin' Man Blues.

We've been talking about his role in the elite Nashville bluegrass new grass cohort of Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas.

And as we pick up on the topic, I wanna make sure something is clear.

In 1999, Bela Fleck released a classic album with the overly long title The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales From the Acoustic Planet, Volume Two.

On that record, Tony Rice played guitar, and then when Bela Fleck formed a band to tour the album, Tony declined or dropped out for reasons that I can't recall, and Bryan, very young, was brought in to fill his enormous shoes.

Thanks.

This year, 2026 marks 20 years since the release of a record called Not Too Far From the Tree.

And that was a collection of duets with guitar players who were heroes or icons in my own development.

You know, so I'm thinking of guys like my dad and Doc Watson and kind of everybody in between.

From Roots to Branches.

Okay.

Pulling from the not too far from the tree sort of imagery and, you know, apple not too far from the tree.

And so here's the roots and branches with branches are all these people that are friends of mine.