A Song of My Own: Sierra Hull Muses on Chris Thile, Rhea Ripley and the Grateful Dead

Photo: Nathan Leslie

***

“For the longest time, I had heard all these Grateful Dead songs, but I didn’t grow up with their music,” Sierra Hull observes. The acclaimed 33-year-old musician has been steeped in the bluegrass scene since her preteen years, subsequently winning six IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year awards while establishing herself as a go-to collaborator (Alison Krauss, Béla Fleck, Sturgill Simpson, Cory Wong). Despite the dearth of Deadheads in her small hometown of Byrdstown, Tenn., Hull eventually encountered the band’s canon through her musical circles.

She acknowledges, “You can’t be a musician in the bluegrass-folk-jam scene without knowing Grateful Dead songs, whether or not you know the source. It’s kind of like being in the bluegrass world where you may know a lot of Bill Monroe songs without having ever heard Bill Monroe play them because it’s built into the catalog.”

When she eventually found her way to the Grateful Dead’s version of “Black Muddy River” on In the Dark, she was so taken with it that she introduced the tune into her live sets. The song soon became a fan-favorite and she finally released it in late September, as the follow-up to the prior month’s cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.”

Meanwhile, Hull has been working on her first full-length album since 2020’s 25 Trips, which included “Ceiling to the Floor,” a Grammy nominee for Best American Roots Song. In the interim, she notes, “I’ve never really been one to release covers. Prior to this, I’d maybe released one cover ever in my career, which was a John Prine song. We’re going to share new music in the first part of the year, so this felt like a way to release a couple of tracks that we love and that fans have been asking for, to just dip my toe back into the recorded format a little bit. I’ve been touring with the same band now for the last few years, and there’s been a real special connection that we’ve been building. You only get that when you play with the same people for a long time.”

You began very young. There’s a video out there of you as a 10-year-old playing with Chris Thile in an informal setting at MerleFest. How did that come to pass?

I was the biggest Alison Krauss fan on the planet. I had discovered Alison when I was 9, but I was fully obsessed. We got our first Nickel Creek record because Alison produced it. We saw her name on the back, and I was like, “We’ve got to get this. This must be good because she produced it.”

That’s when I heard Chris playing for the first time, and it blew my mind. I had not heard anybody play like that at that point. So fast forward, I grew up in this tiny little town in Tennessee called Byrdstown. There are maybe 700 people that live there now. There’s no red light. My heroes didn’t come very close by because there was nowhere for them to play. My parents worked full-time jobs. We didn’t have a ton of money, and we didn’t vacation extravagantly or really at all. So the idea of getting to go to North Carolina, which was quite the trip for my family, was unbelievable.

In Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, we saw an advertisement for MerleFest. Alison Krauss & Union Station were going to be there, Nickel Creek was going to be there and all these other people were going to be there. We loved Doc Watson, and it was his festival, so my dad said, “Would you like to go?” I was 10 years old, and I couldn’t believe this was an option. I’d probably never been out of the state at that point.

I was so excited, and I just knew I was going to get to meet Alison because at every little festival I’d been to on the local level, you’d just walk up to somebody when they were done playing. [Laughs.]

So we went on this trip and, when we got there, we realized that MerleFest is a huge festival. I remember my mom saying, “Now, honey, this is a big festival. I don’t know if you’re going to get to meet her this time, but at least you’ll get to hear her play live.” And I said, “Oh, please pray I get to meet her. Please pray I get to meet her.” I just wanted to meet her so badly. She was my Michael Jordan.

I was excited to get to see Nickel Creek, too. I was becoming a big fan. Then we discovered that Chris Thile and Mike Marshall had done a workshop on one of the side stages. We’d just missed it, but we walked up and there was Chris standing beside the stage. It was one of the smaller stages, where you could walk up to the musicians. He was taking pictures with people and I had him sign my purple Girl Power mandolin strap. I got a photo and I was on cloud nine. I was still hoping I’d get to meet Alison, but I couldn’t believe I got to meet Chris Thile.

Then, as we were walking on to the next thing, somebody stopped me and said, “Hey, are you that little girl I saw jamming last night on the mandolin?” I was like, “Yeah, that was me.” Then he said, “I was telling my daughter about you. Would you mind playing her a tune?”

So I got my mandolin out, but I didn’t have a strap on, so I kind of knelt down in the grass. I had just met Chris, and as a little kid, when somebody would say, “Play something,” I would usually look to my dad and ask, “What should I play?” So he said, “Well, how about trying a little bit of that ‘Ode to a Butterfly?’” Then he told them, “She’s been trying to learn that and she just got to meet Chris Thile over there.” [The song opens the Krauss-produced 2000 album Nickel Creek.]

We were far enough from Chris that there was no way he was going to hear me play it. But I started playing, and because I was a little kid, there was a crowd that kind of gathered around while I was playing.

Then somebody recognized what tune I was playing and ran over to get Chris. So by the time I was done trying to do my best Chris Thile impersonation, I looked up and there was Chris right in front of me. I didn’t even know he was there and he asked, “Want to play it together?” So we jammed for like two hours. It was an unbelievably sweet gesture to give me as a young girl, and then he took me backstage to meet my hero.

You had such confidence and presence even at 10. At what point did you envision that you might become a professional musician?

I started playing when I was 8. I was one of the fortunate ones to be gifted an instrument and have that in my hand at a young age. When I look back, it was an immediate reaction. From the time I learned my first tune on the mandolin, I knew pretty quickly that was what I wanted to do with my life.

I would go to these jam sessions on the weekends and I loved the music, but I stayed for the community as much as anything because it was about getting to be a part of this friendship circle that you develop with people.

Back then, it was me and a bunch of older people—there weren’t that many kids—but I felt so welcome and part of the community in this really beautiful way. I couldn’t wait for the weekends, when I would be able to go get in these jam circles and learn from the musicians.

There was just so much to learn as there always is, but especially at that early stage of playing music; there’s something so exciting about it. It’s kind of like a rocket in how quickly you can learn stuff when you just are so fully immersed in it as a kid.

So I fell in love with that and started discovering all these new artists every week. My list of heroes was quickly growing around that time, and I wanted to do what they did.

When I look back, there’s hardly a time in my life when I can remember not wanting to be a musician. That did not necessarily have anything to do with talent or thinking I was good enough. But I had this feeling of, “How could I do anything else?” I think that has remained constant with me throughout my career.

Who were those initial heroes, and as a singer, did you emulate any particular vocalist at that young age?

I would say I definitely was emulating my heroes from an early age. I learned to play by emulating my mandolin heroes and learned to sing by emulating my vocal heroes. Probably the most prominent influence would be Alison Krauss because she was my biggest hero as a kid, as far as a female vocalist goes. But there’s a long list of people whose music I’ve loved—Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, Dolly Parton and it goes on from there.

As you continued to evolve as a vocalist, can you recall the first song or performance where you surprised yourself with what you could do?

I remember early on, I learned how to sing harmony. Growing up in the bluegrass world, a lot of the songs that people do at the jam sessions didn’t always fit a female voice. So I would be the harmony singer. I would sing tenor a lot of times to the lead singer.

I think writing my own songs is what stood out to me more than surprising myself as a singer. It began around the time of making my first record at 15 or 16. It was a light bulb moment of realizing that, if I don’t have songs in front of me that I feel connected to, I can write them. I can write things to sing in whatever key, whatever arrangement I want. It doesn’t have to be a particular thing. It doesn’t have to be a bluegrass song. It can be whatever I want it to be. I think allowing myself that kind of freedom in my teens was a pivotal moment.

Is there a specific song you can point to where you finally were able express yourself in a manner that you had been hoping to achieve?

You can go back to [2011’s] Daybreak and the song “Daybreak.” I remember feeling that way about it, but I would say a lot of that really came to life even later with 25 Trips. That was the first full album of originals where I felt like, “Whether anybody likes it or not, I’ve got to write these songs.”

Then, after I had written them, I felt like I had to share them. I felt like that was a record I had to make. So I think of the transition from the Daybreak album, where I was starting to lean into that, to the point of actually making 25 Trips, which felt like my singer songwriter album.

Jumping ahead, what led you to record a version of “Mad World?”

“Mad World” is one of those songs that you know without realizing it. I hardly ever turn on the TV when I’m traveling, but I was somewhere when I had an off-day and, for some reason, I turned on the television in some hotel and I heard a version of this song on a television program. I caught the back end of it and I was like, “What is that song? It’s so familiar.”

Then I looked it up and the song kept following me around. I later did a tour with a friend of mine, Ron Block, in the U.K. At this Airbnb I was staying at, there was a piano and some sheet music. So I walked over and what was the sheet music? “Mad World.”

I was just like, “This song is suddenly everywhere.” It made me feel like it was a sign from the universe or something, telling me that I should learn it. So I decided to take the time to sit down and make my own version of it, and I started covering it live. It became a very requested song from our fans and one of my favorite songs to do.

We’d play it and people would ask, “Where can I get that? Are you going to record that?” So finally we were like, “OK, we’re going to document our version of this song.”

How about “Black Muddy River?”

I was certainly aware of the Grateful Dead’s music, but I had never taken the opportunity to dive in. Then I did a show with Matt Butler’s Everyone Orchestra project. It was mostly an improvised show, but they also did a little segment of Grateful Dead songs as part of this weekend. They were like, “Hey, why don’t you pick out a song or two to do?” So I started checking out the recorded versions. I’d heard a lot of live ones because there’s such a vast catalog of their live performances over the years. Then I started digging into the studio albums and I was like, “Geez, these are really cool.” When I came across “Black Muddy River,” I was like, “This is such a gorgeous song,” so I picked that one.

I feel like it was a pivotal moment, where I could finally say, “Wow, I’m a fan of the Grateful Dead.” Once I gave that music the real listen it deserves, I finally realized the level of it. I think part of why it took me a little bit to get in there is because sometimes, when something feels larger than life—and the music of the Grateful Dead feels that way to me because so many people are fans—I don’t want to join the bandwagon without putting in the time to listen and get it for myself. It was exciting to feel like I was authentically part of the club of people who love this music in a genuine way because I’d done my due diligence of diving in.

It was no longer like knowing the music of Bill Monroe just by going to a bluegrass jam. It was about actually having a real relationship with the original performances.

Then it was the same deal, where we kept it in rotation in the live show. I love playing it with my band, and it’s one of my favorite vocal moments when we get to do the harmonies. Again, we finally had enough people asking, “When are you going to record that?” So we said, “OK, we’re going to finally do it.”

It was really fun to be able to record a couple of the songs that fans are always asking about and that we also love having in rotation.

How far along are you in the process of creating your next album of originals?

I have some original music that I’ve been working on for the last two-and-a-half or three years. I’ve been recording a lot over that time.

My band not only played on the cover tracks we’ve released, but they’re also heavily featured on a lot of this new original music. That’s been really fun and it’s different than anything I’ve done before. On my records prior to this, I was mostly calling different people I love and using studio musicians to come in and do various things. But it’s really cool to have a project that I feel like we can recreate. With “Mad World” or “Black Muddy River,” the way you hear it on the recording is the way you can hear it live. Traditionally, I tend to play multiple instruments on the recordings and build things from the ground up. So this will be a little different than 25 Trips, in terms of what the music is going to bring.

Some of these songs we’ve been playing live for a bit, and it’s going to feel really good to finally be able to share this music with people in the recorded format.

Over the past few years, you’ve performed live with so many different folks. Can you talk about appearing in Cory Wong’s band? Genre aside, I found it surprising because the group delivers so much sound on stage. How did that come about and was it challenging for you to find musical space?

It’s interesting because that is one of those collaborations you wouldn’t think would necessarily work, but somehow it really does. I think that’s because everybody in that group is so musical, and Cory is such a good curator and leader who surrounds himself with these incredible players. So when I stepped into that, everybody was such a good listener and loves music of all sorts, so there wasn’t a real barrier with the language or groove; it all kind of clicked. Sometimes the tricky part was figuring out how to get the mandolin to be loud enough to play with six horns, electric guitar and keys, but otherwise, it was a natural fit.

That came about because Cory and I share a mutual friend and horn player, Eddie Barbash—he’s played a lot with Cory and a good bit with me as well. So Cory reached out to me about playing on one of his recordings during the pandemic. I overdubbed some stuff and we did a little bit of virtual recording before we had even met. It all just worked, so we continued to stay in touch.

Then I ended up going out and opening some shows on a couple of tours with him. I also played with the band on those tours as well, which was awesome and we’ve been dear friends ever since. Any chance I get to do something with Cory, it’s always a blast. His spirit is one of the biggest lights out there.

This summer, you also joined Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas for two sets with The String Cheese Incident at Red Rocks. What was it like being part of that ensemble?

That one was very chill in that a lot of it was put together on the fly. We did some emailing about what a potential setlist might look like, and they had some songs in mind that they wanted me, Sam and Jerry to be on. But most of it was put together on the day of the show.

We got together in the back room, although a lot of it was improvised and cued on the fly, which sometimes is really fun in those situations, too. You had all these musicians whose instincts about being able to pass around the musical ball were so good. So if I was singing a song and I just went, “Take a solo, Sam!” he knew what to do. There was a real loose playfulness to it, which was really cool.

It was such a gorgeous night with the weather, and Red Rocks is one of the coolest venues on the planet. So it was a real treat to be there with those guys, helping them celebrate their years together as a band. Then to also be there with Sam and Jerry, who are two of my biggest heroes of all time and my dear friends, was really awesome.

Thinking back to last year’s big Halloween show with Billy Strings, what are your memories of the wrestling-themed extravaganza?

Oh my God. The outfits alone were for the books. I mean, that was just a wild, fun night with everybody getting in full costume. I love Billy. We’ve been friends for so many years now, going back to long before he exploded. I remember sitting there with him at the 5 Spot in Nashville when he was doing a residency several years back. I’m just so proud to see how well he’s done and how he’s exploded. Anytime I get to hang with him and make some music, it’s always a blast. That was a special one.

Did you have any input on your costume?

No, they actually had somebody doing the costumes for us, although they asked, “What would Sierra think about this?” Hilariously, I have a husband who’s been following wrestling since he was a kid, so I knew the character. When they said, “Would Sierra be this character Rhea Ripley?” I died laughing. I knew exactly who they were talking about.

I know more about wrestling than I should, being married to a man who knows a lot about it. So I knew all the characters without necessarily being a wrestling fan, if that makes sense. It was really funny.

The fact that Justin Moses is a wrestling fan is as surprising as anything I’ve heard this week. Do people know that about him?

He’ll probably love that I’m announcing it to the world, but it’s true. We’ve been married over seven years now and dated for about seven years before that. I know the man very well, and if you were to erase that fact from my memory, I would put a thousand dollars on the table and say, “There’s no way he’s a wrestling fan.” But it turns out, he is. [Laughs.] It’s one of those childhood things that he still keeps up with.

Beyond these two singles, is there anything else you have in the works prior to the release of your next album?

We’ve recorded a couple of Christmas tracks, actually. We’re going to be rolling out a lot of music in the coming months. I’m really stoked about those tracks. We just mastered them and the goal is to have them come out on a 7” around the holiday. It’s pretty exciting to finally reach a season of sharing music with people.