When you’ve got an area as firmly entrenched in tradition as North Carolina is, you’re guaranteed to have a slew of bluegrass aficionados. Folks like Hank Smith and Lindsey Tims are proof of this, two musicians who are doing their damndest to expand the horizons of a genre that many may pigeonhole as a niche, or static genre. Throughout our hour long conversation, we covered a wide array of topics ranging from the recent IBMA Festival in Raleigh, the evolution of the bluegrass genre and where their traditional roots have taken them as musicians.
Hank and Lindsey are two incredibly busy musicians that have a penchant for wide-reaching tunes, that’d explain their Flecktones tribute band alongside their work in The Morning After, the occasional Barefoot Manner show, and their new duo performances. Whether they’re churning out bluegrass iterations of Icelandic tunes or a sprawling yet simplistic arrangement of a Flecktone favorite, they’re always putting on clinicals, showing that two men with acoustic instruments can produce much more than meets the eye.
Check out our full conversation with Hank and Lindsey including a few in-studio performances and a handful of tracks from The Morning After, Barefoot Manner and the duo’s most recent release Impulse.