Review Fix Exclusive: Banjo Nickaru’s Nick Russo and Betina Hershey Talk ‘I’m Getting’ Married’ And More

Review Fix chats with Banjo Nickaru’s Nick Russo (banjo/resonator/guitar/vocals) & Betina Hershey (vocals/guitar) who discuss their creative process, origin and standout song ,”I’m Getting’ Married.”

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Nick Russo: Miles (Griffith) and I met while working on our masters at Aaron Copland School of Music (at Queens College) and have been playing together for over 17 years. I met David (Pleasant) through playing with Miles’ group, “New Ting.” The three of us have been playing together for over 15 years. Betina and I met in 2006 when my first CD “Ro” was released and I was playing a lot of progressive, experimental jazz with North Indian classical influences. At that time, I was playing guitar and tenor banjo, but not 5-string banjo.

Betina Hershey: Through the years we’ve played together in many different genres, contexts and gigs but in 2007 Nick started playing the 5-string banjo and we started getting more and more interested in playing bluegrass, Americana, and roots music.

Russo: A different incarnation of the band, called “Banjo Nickaru & His Western Scooches” has been playing together since 2013 when we were called for “Strawberry Festival,” an outdoor concert in Brooklyn. We performed as a septet with fiddle, lap steel, another female vocalist, upright bass, and drums plus Betina on guitar/voice and myself on 5-string banjo and guitar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddvKemokZ2s). Then, after performing at NERFA (Northeast Regional Folk Alliance) last year as a sideman with fiddle player, Efrat, and playing Americana gigs with Betina & Dr. David Pleasant (on spoons and drums), I was inspired to form a Gullah-Geechee influenced folk version of Banjo Nickaru & His Western Scooches. We shortened the band name to Banjo Nickaru & Western Scooches, and added Miles as the second vocalist and improviser.

Hershey: I’m loving the interplay between Miles’ scatting, David’s Gullah-Geechee influence, Nick’s rhythmic guitar and banjo style, and my own love of lyrics, melody and traditional music. We came up with the name Banjo Nickaru & Western Scooches because someone we know would call Nick, “Nicka,” and we just added the ru. The Scooches came from Nick’s Italian grandfather (also Nick Russo) who always called him a “scooch,” meaning he was a little rascal, which Nick definitely was!

Russo: Actually, anyone in our family “bothering” someone with a longing for attention, loving but annoying way was called a “scooch!” So I wasn’t the only rascal in our family! By the way, my er pop pop (grandfather), trombonist-mandolinist-guitarist, played with Red Nichols & His Five Pennies as well as Spike Jones!

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Hershey: Often one of us starts to play a song and everyone else jumps in. If we record it, sometimes we grab onto arrangement ideas from our improvisation and then solidify a few key moments we want to keep, always leaving room for movement, change, interplay.

Russo: We listen, we react organically and spontaneously. I prefer for the music to develop naturally and as Betina mentioned, when we record, we’ll sometimes grab an idea from the previously improvised arrangement. Miles, David and I improvise off each other in such a magical, unique, free way and Betina, often as lead singer creates a vibe allowing us to have that freedom.

Review Fix: What’s your standout original song? How was it written?

Hershey: ‘I’m Gettin’ Married’ is a playful tune Nick & I wrote together in our living room. I was writing the lyrics from Nick’s perspective and he was jumping in and adding some of the lyrics, too. It was an easy, fun collaboration.

Russo: ‘I’m Gettin’ Married’ is our personal story how Betina and I met. It’s a true story and others who listen can relate to their own lives. I especially like the line we wrote, “Almost every night I would order out, now I’m buying groceries and seasoning trout. Used to hang out late, jammin’ with the boys, soon I’ll get up early and play with baby toys!” We wrote this before we had kids! ha ha.

Review Fix: How do you determine which standards to re-imagine? What’s the process for working up arrangements?

Hershey: We play so many standards and when one gets under our skin, we start to call it on all of our gigs, and it becomes one of the ones we really want to record. We don’t sit down and plot or plan an arrangement. It almost always comes out of the group, from performing it many times, and it evolves into the rendition we record. Even after we record it, it usually continues to evolve. Jock-A-Mo is a tune that we recorded live on video and had no pre-planned arrangement, but when we were editing the video, we ended up loving the arrangement, and now we almost always perform this specific arrangement. We all had to learn it by listening to the edited recording, and then allow it to breathe, change.

Russo: I agree with Betina, it’s such an organic process. We feel what tune to do in the moment or often, one of us will just start playing and all of us will listen and jump in. When we play for a live audience, they are part of that process. Banjo Nickaru & Western Scooches play to the vibe of the room, to the folks listening and even to people not listening but being present. I love how Miles and Betina draw someone new in that maybe previously wasn’t listening. It’s always a good time!

Review Fix: Who are your influences?

Hershey: So many. My earliest influences came from my mother and I listening to records and dancing in the living room to Tammy Wynette, Emmy Lou Harris, Dolly Parton, Allison Krauss, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Joan Baez, Stevie Wonder, Prince, James Taylor, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan.

Russo: My earliest influences were from my dad (founder/member of pre-Kiss group, Scarecrow who toured with Sly & The Family Stone and played with Chuck Berry) http://richardandnancyrusso.blogspot.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfOo8_GXxsM

We had a recording studio in our basement and since I was 6 or 7 years old, I was playing drums and guitar on my dad’s home recordings, including bands my dad was recording and producing.

I grew up listening to a lot of blues, R&B, classic rock, pop and folk music: Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Ray Charles, Santana, ZZ Top, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Rush, Dire Straits, Richie Havens, Mandrill, Sky & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, and Bob Marley,  just to name a few. As I grew as a young musician, I mainly listened and studied jazz and classical music, such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Stravinsky, Bartok, Albeniz, and Carcassi.

When I joined Vince Giordano’s Night Hawks around 2005 I revisited the 1920s and 1930s standards I had learned from my grandfather and re-learned the tenor banjo. I had played tenor banjo on a 3-week long gig in Japan seven years prior (1998). However, playing tenor banjo and guitar regularly in Vince’s Night Hawks gave me a tremendous experience, exposing me to a lot of the music of the 1920s. This influenced my playing and helped me to develop my own voice on the tenor banjo. As I first learned 5-string banjo in 2007, I ventured more into roots, bluegrass and country, revisiting music of Earl Scruggs, Allison Krauss & Union Station, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Reverend Gary Davis and other influential musicians.

As as a group, Banjo Nickaru & Western Scoches’ influences range from Gullah Sea Islands (Gullah-Geechee) to music of New Orleans to 1920s to folk, encompassing  calypso, bluegrass, country, blues, Americana, R&B and world music.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Hershey: I want them to feel dancing in their bones, their souls wanting to communicate, love, feistiness, rebelliousness, and fun. Although I also really love how music can bring out sadness, troubles, and let us think a bit more deeply about world issues.

Russo: Fusing all of these genres, sounds and influences as we bring people together makes me happy. We would like to break down some more of the racial, social, local community walls and be open-minded, spiritual human beings, present as a global community on planet earth with open ears, hearts, minds and souls. Every music can be world music that we listen, move and groove to!

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2016?

Hershey: Banjo Nickaru & His Western Scooches will be traveling around promoting our album, performing, I’ll be writing another children’s musical (I write an original children’s musical every year), sharing my love of music and theater with children through the joy of teaching, learning more music, and writing more!

Russo: We are so honored and excited to start our tour to promote the new album, ‘Very Next Thing’ which releases September 30. Here are the dates, with more to come:

8/22 – Johnson City, TN @ WETS 89.5 FM (5pm)
8/22 – Johnson City, TN @ The Acoustic Coffeehouse (8pm)
8/24 – Knoxville, TN @ WDVX Blue Plate Special (12pm)
9/09 – Kingston, NY @ Alley Cat (8pm)
9/11 – Upper Montclair, NJ @ Joltin Joe’s Radio Nowhere (WMSC 90.3FM)
9/19 – Lexington, KY @ WoodSongs, Lyric Theatre (6:45pm)
9/30 – New York, NY @ Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 3) [Record Release Show]
11/5 – Boston, MA @ Alternate Root TV