129. Sierra Hull
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This week on the show is the great mandolin player, singer and songwriter Sierra Hull. Sierra is a monster player, and while she’s still really young, she’s been making records of her own for over 15 years now. The latest one, called “25 Trips” came out right around the pandemic, so her touring was curtailed for a while, but she’s back at it now in full force, playing with her band and also with Cory Wong and Bela Fleck, being a major part of Bela’s “My Bluegrass Heart” album and shows earlier this year. I was really interested in talking to her about that because I can’t imagine how crazy that must be to be sitting in a room full of your heros that you grew up listening to and learning from and suddenly they’re your peers and you’re right in the mix with all of them. In the bluegrass world, that project doesn’t get any heavier - Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Sam Bush, Chris Thile, Noam Pikelny, Stuart Duncan, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle - they’re all involved, and it’s a great album. Sierra has made some great solo albums with Allison Krauss and Bela Fleck producing, and on the latest one, “25 Trips”, she’s co-producing with a killer engineer named Shani Gandhi. It’s definitely rooted in bluegrass, but steps out into some more experimental territory as well with some innovative sounds and production ideas. The crew on this album includes Justin Moses, Viktor Krauss, Bryan Sutton, Paul Franklin, Jano Rix and lots more. So we got to talk about how she approaches making music, and all about how she prepares as a side-person for some of the heavy gigs she’s involved in these days.
Sierra is constantly out on tour and you can keep up with what she’s doing and where to see her at: sierrahull.com
Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.
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