There may not be a happier person on the planet than Jorma Kaukonen. And he’s a rare breed to begin with, a musician gladly and passionately beholden to his roots, more than willing and consummately able to educate on the subject academically and practically through the workshops he’s been conducting for years at his Fur Peach Ranch in Ohio, and more recently and often, on the road as he tours to play solo and with the truly legendary Hot Tuna.
More than merely unusual is the voluble Kaukonen’s career path. As the years have evolved, he has slowly but surely returned to his beginnings.As a younger student of blues guitar he offered lessons to like-minded novices as a means to make ends meet. Now he and his wife Vanessa and staff operate the aforementioned Fur Peace complex in Ohio, originally created in 1997 and organically developed over the years to nurture a sympathetic atmosphere for music as a communal exercise as well as individual skill.
Having turned seventy years old in 2010, Jorma may in fact be busier now than at any point in his career, even in those days he was dividing his time between his role as lead guitarist/songwriter/vocalist for Jefferson Airplane and a similar but more prominent place as co-leader of Hot Tuna, along with his friend of fifty-years plus, bassist Jack Casady. Regular touring on his own and in company with the current band alternates with stretches at Fur Peace which now boasts a conference center and an extensive concert series in addition to the rustic but elegant lodging amenities.
The two sets of activities are increasingly interwoven as on Kaukonen’s recent jaunt to the Far East (Japan and China) and Hawaii he played shows and conducted educational sessions along the way.
With a similar but more extensive offering including other musicians set to be conducted at this year’s Wanee Festival in April, Jorma spent a few minutes with Doug Collette discussing the various ways he takes pleasure in life right now, not to exclude the time with friends and family apart from music, the fruits of which he was enjoying at the time of this conversation. Like so many great musicians, the way he talks mirrors the way he plays: precise and logical but often playful and thoroughly fascinating to hear…
Tell me what a good time you had in Hawaii and Japan recently– I saw you took Fur peace on the road for a little bit.
We did. I was in Hawaii, Japan and China…
I did not notice you went to China. That must’ve been quite a trip!
It was fabulous. I’ve been to Japan before and, of course, Hawaii is beautiful, but it’s Hawaii and I loved it all. But China was fantastic: It was something new for me– the people the music the energy there…There’s definitely a lot going on.
I wanted to talk with you about Fur Peace Ranch. As I was getting ready to speak with you, I was very surprised to find what an enterprise it’s grown to be over the years: the concerts, the lodging…Are you surprised by its growth?
This is our fifteenth year and when we put it together the first year we had the lodging and stuff, the concert hall didn’t come until 2002, but it’s all been able to withstand the economic downturn. We have so many supporters, not only from our community, but from people literally around the world. The short answer is: yes, I am surprised.
I figure you must be at a point now where you have the wonderful problem of deciding what you want to do most at any given time. It almost seems you wouldn’t have time to go on the road, but stay at Fur Peace all year round?!
Well, you know, my main business is still being on the road. The Fur Peace Ranch is not costing us money any more, but I really couldn’t support myself on it. Yet it’s so close to our hearts and important to us. And you’re absolutely right: I’m the luckiest guy in the world because I get to teach, I get to do the Fur Peace Ranch at home, I get to tour on the road, not only by myself but with Jack (Casady),with electric Hot Tuna, with acoustic Hot Tuna with Barry …my life is just filled with cool things!
I wanted to ask you about Barry Mitterhoff because I’ve seen you play with him and Jack in Hot Tuna, but you two did a show together here in Vermont last autumn and I found it remarkable in that, every time I see you guys play, you seem to have attained another level of intimacy and mutual dexterity. When did you first encounter Barry and start playing with him?
I did an album for Columbia Records in 2002 called Blue Country Heart and we got a Grammy Award nomination for it too and one of the reasons we did was because it was an event: we had Sam Bush, we had Bela Fleck, we had Jerry Douglas, all these national luminaries. So when I finished the album and I wanted to go on the road, obviously that would’ve been a dream band to take on the road.
So I realized that would be a dream band and it would have to stay that way. At that time I had been playing off and on with a really great dobro player from Colorado name Sally Van Meter and I had asked her if she’d be part of the road band; when I talked to her she had been teaching a workshop or camp or something in England and I told her about my plight and she said “I got just the guy for you. He’s an old friend of mine he’s from New Jersey, he’s right here, I’m going to give him your email.And so he emailed me and we talked on the phone, and he just seemed like a great guy. One of the things that’s important to me, really, is not just playing with great guys, but playing with friends. Barry and I became friends almost immediately; Sam and the guys I’d known them for years– though we had never played together– and Barry is just one of my best buddies now.
There’s an easygoing atmosphere when you guys are on stage talking as well as playing. It’s really great to see.
Thank you for saying that…
I noticed that you were going to have Fur Peace on site at the Wanee Festival in April. Is that the first big undertaking like that you’ve done?
It is. The funny thing was, they came to us with this and so obviously it’s going to be a little different from what we do in Ohio and various sundry things on the road: we do really in-depth workshops. To be honest with you, it looks like it’s going to be well-received, but the final vote’s out till we do it. It’s not going to be a note-by-note workshop but I’ve got some great ideas and we’ve got some great people who are going to do it with us: Warren Haynes is going to be there, Oteil (Burbridge of The Allman Brothers and Tedeschi-Trucks bands), Jack, Mickey Hart (drummer of the Grateful Dead). We’ve got a bunch of great people and everybody’s very outgoing too, so I think we’re going to have a lot of fun. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to work, but it’s going to be good—it’s going to be a blast.
Is it a big logistical undertaking to set up something like that and make it happen?
They’re providing for us—I think we have a tent or something—but you know the good news about what we do really is, we’re going to limit it to a manageable number of people. For the actual classes– like Jack and I are doing a thing where we’re going to do something for guitar players and bass players and actually teach them to play together–that’ll be like what we do all the time, those classes will be limited to ten each. For the Q&A things, where we are basically going to get together and talk to the folks, we’ll take up to three hundred.
That gives you a chance to give everyone who participates all the attention they want though.
Yes, that’s a really teaching endeavor. The other stuff is educational too, but what we’re teaching here at the ranch, I take up to fifteen students. My favorite is six to ten.
Do you find when you are conducting these workshops and helping people learn that you’re teaching yourself or re-learning yourself as you go along?
Absolutely. I have to allow that I have probably learned more from my students than they have from me. Not only have I been forced to actually ascertain what I do to explain it to other people, but, along the way, because everybody knows something you don’t know, I’m always getting insights into music in general from my students, so it’s exciting.
I would think it would be a terrific pleasure!?
Oh totally! Plus, when I’m teaching, I’m playing very articulately and slowly: it’s kind of like tai-chi for music and that really works for me because I never really learned how to practice, I just play a lot. And in my older age, I have even less time to do that, so teaching is really important to me to keep sharp.
One thing I noticed when I saw you and Barry in the fall: he seems to have, not a more precise or more meticulous approach, but you were much more instinctive than he is. Is that what you get from playing with him?
That’s totally it!. That’s a really great observation. Barry is a schooled musician and I’m not. He not only plays the kind of music he plays with me, but he plays as an expert in some unpronounceable Brazilian music, and also Italian traditional music, he plays in a klezmer band, he plays classical, he reads and writes music, sometimes plays in pit orchestras that play on Broadway, so he really knows how to do a lot of stuff.He brings a much more organized, classical approach to the table. I’ve obviously been studying music in my own way for years but, you’re right, my approach tends to be much more intuitive than his.
Is Barry one of those guys who can see an instrument that he’s never seen before, pick it up, then play it in minutes?
He’d probably deny this…but I will say this, because I’ve seen him do it: if it’s an instrument that’s related to the mandolin, in any way, whether it’s made out of aardvark or armadillo shell or a piece of rosewood, my take would be he can play it. He’d deny it “No, no, no, I can’t play it,” but that’s baloney, he can play it. If it resembles the mandolin in any way or shape, he can play it.
He just radiates this great sense of curiosity about “What am I going to learn out of this instrument next?” whether he’s playing the mandolin, banjo or guitar. It’s fascinating to watch him play.
I couldn’t agree more. He’s a really intense guy in a really good-natured kind of way. He’s got a great sense of humor, musical and otherwise. His eyes are wide open.
Yeah he really likes to yuk it up with you and Jack when you are on stage together.
Yes he does!
Well, speaking of stringed-instrument wizards, how much fun did you have working with Larry Campbell at Levon’s barn on the Hot Tuna album (Steady as She Goes)?
This is my second project with Larry. We’ve been friends for a number of years and we’ve been involved in a number of performance projects. You know, I talk about being a lucky guy, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Larry is such a great guy. Obviously you’re familiar with him, you know any instrument he picks up, it sounds like the instrument that he plays.
You are right! Anything that he plays…
And his musical sensibilities are flawless, whether he’s working with us or Cyndi Lauper or with Levon, whatever, he just does what’s right.
Yeah he’s got a great musical sense. He doesn’t think about himself…
He’s thinking about others: his ego involvement is none of that stupid flash instrumentalist kind of thing, it’s more: what can I do to fit in and make this better?
I’ve seen him play a lot of times, with Levon, but mostly with Phil Lesh’s band and if there’s anything wrong with Larry, it’s sometimes he’s reticent to a fault: he’s not naturally inclined to step forward and as you said, swing it around and show off.
Every now and then I’m fortunate enough to have both him and Teresa (Williams, vocalist and wife of Larry Campbell) play with Hot Tuna and when we do that, I…WE…insist that he step forward and make guitar faces and stuff!
(laughs). That must be a hoot. I see he and Teresa are coming to play one of the concerts at Fur Peace this year.
Oh yeah, they’re the best, you know. Once again you talk about luck. Teresa, besides being a lovely woman and a wonderful human being plus a dear fried, is just a fabulous, fabulous singer. She certainly has her own style, but when she’s singing with, whoever she’s singing with, it sounds like she’s—their singer! If I could afford it, and if she could afford it, every time I open my mouth on stage, she’d be there.
I can see why you’d say that. Was there a big difference in the approach for recording the Hot Tuna album Steady As She Goes, in contrast to your solo album River of Time (2009 release, like the Tuna album, on Red House Records)with Larry?
Not really. We had other personalities to deal with, but Larry’s a master at that and we were all so excited. I knew what to expect because I had done some stuff with him, so Larry and I knew how magical it would be. I kept telling Jack: “You are going to love this experience.” He was excited because we hadn’t been in the studio together in twenty years, but of course, they became fast buddies. Just working with Larry is so much fun, but it was a little more complex because it was a little more multi-dimensional than doing one of my solo projects, but in kind, it was exactly the same: it was great.
Had you ever been to Levon’s studio before you did River of Time?
Oh yeah I used to live up in Woodstock and I’ve know Le (von) for a long time.We did River of Time there of course but back in the early Eighties, I had worked there doing a bunch of Homespun (instructional) videos for Happy Traum and I also played on David Bromberg’s Sideman Serenade (Rounder, 1990) and he recorded that there.
I went to one of Levon’s Rambles a few years ago. It was absolutely breathtaking.
Check this out then. When we were recording the album we had a break; we did the album in about eight our nine days, but in the middle of that was a Ramble, so we got to go to the Ramble and we got to play it. I got to sing a verse of “The Weight” with Levon Helm. How much better than that can you get?
It doesn’t get much better than that. What did you feel when you were in the middle of that?
It was magical. You know I had live in Woodstock and I had worked there when Rick (Danko, bassist/vocalist with The Band) was still alive, I had worked with the guys and we were all really dear friends, but back then they had the band minus Robbie (Robertson, guitarist/songwriter with The Band) still together and I occasionally sat in and played guitar with them and sometimes I’d open up shows for them. But to be able to sing one of the verses of my favorite songs with the guys who did the song (from Music From Big Pink, 1968), you know it was pretty cool.
Levon has a tremendous heart, so open and so generous. Talk about radiating good feelings when he walks in a room.
Amen brother.
Reading about Fur Peace Ranch, the one thing that seems to be missing from the whole enterprise is a recording operation? Is that something that I missed or is that something that hasn’t quite happened yet?
To tell you the truth, it’s happened and I’m done with it. I had a little studio there because I have a great sounding room, but in order for the recording thing to work, you need to be able to do what Levon does and that is rent out your studio and have people come in. Which means that you need to have a Larry Campbell–because he works in the studio all the time–and a Justin Guip—that’s Larry’s partner who really is the lead engineer who runs the studio—you need those guys to keep house.
And then that is something that is so top-heavy; I am in over my depth with guys who are really good at it. The other thing was I stopped really recording, probably in the late Nineties, early Two-thousands, because, while I started out doing it because I loved that stuff, everything becomes obsolete so quickly; you need A) money to keep up with it and B) you need the ability to read manuals and understand them. I was really faced with the quandary of “Do I really want to get into that as a second engineer?” or “Did I want to play music?” Music is more fun.
I would imagine interacting with a steady stream of music lovers would be far more fascinating than dealing with patch cords and digital software.
It’s much more fun to have other people do that: “I want to sound like a plane flying through the air!?…” whatever, you know…(chuckles)
