From the Archive: Bryan Sutton's Fretboard Journal Cover Story

This article originally appeared as the cover story for our now out-of-print 40th edition

Forever Finding Notes

Bryan Sutton jumps from guitar super-sideman into the spotlight as bandleader

By David McCarty

A friendly word of advice to fans of flatpicking guitar mega-wizard Bryan Sutton: Don’t try to label him with any common musical clichés or stereotypes.

Guitar geek? Well, he does own at least 20 acoustic guitars, including examples of some of the finest vintage Martins and Gibsons, along with the best guitars modern lutherie can provide. But as his longtime friend and guitar luthier Dana Bourgeois explains, Sutton is pointedly uninterested in things like torrefication, exotic tonewoods, catalyzed finishes, advanced bracing systems and the other minutiae most guitar aficionados obsess over. 

Hmm...well, then, he must be a dyed-in-the-wool, bluegrass forever, North Carolina native who adores Doc Watson and has zero interest in music from the rock scene. Hardly. In high school, Sutton played with a group of metalheads, jamming on tunes from Van Halen, AC/DC, Skid Row, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, who he saw live at Bonnaroo in front of 40,000 screaming fans. He’s still into that electric shredding sound, enjoying Mr. Big, Dokken, Steve Vai and others. He was such a fan of Ozzy he even learned the iconic Randy Rhoades guitar solo to Crazy Train. The Doc Watson man-crush, however, is a very real thing.

Okay, how about romantic road-warrior musician, always anxious to grab suitcase and guitar and hit the highway or board a plane to entertain bluegrass-thirsty audiences or teach guitar at an advanced musical workshop? And surely he lives in Nashville, close to the acoustic music scene. Wrong again. Sutton chose his initial career—studio sideman—because it allowed him to balance (one of his favorite words) his passion to make his living through music with the demands of having a home and family. He unplugs completely when he’s back home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where he’s often found hosting movie nights on his two-story-high outdoor TV projection screen for his neighbors and family. During the school year, he’s most likely calling the lines at one of his daughter’s high school volleyball games like any regular dad, not hitting the juke joints on Broadway in Nashvegas.

“The road,” he says dryly, “does not call to me.”

What does call to him is a driving urge to make great music in as many different directions and settings as possible. Since earning his place as an A-list player in Nashville, he’s worked with everyone from bluegrass stars Chris Thile, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and more, as well as mainstream country artists like Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, Keith Urban, Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks. He even sat in with Harry Connick Jr. in March on the jazz legend’s morning TV show. When Pete Wernick called to ask him to fill the unfillable shoes of the legendary Charles Sawtelle in the revamped edition of Hot Rize, Sutton approached the job like he does everything: carefully, methodically and with a balanced eye toward doing it his way and not trying to replace someone who cannot ever be replaced. 

It’s all part of a lifelong musical journey where, as Sutton says eloquently in the title tune to his newest CD, The More I Learn, he’s “still finding notes on this guitar.”

That voyage of musical discovery started for Sutton at age 8 when he began learning from his guitar-playing dad, Jerry. Born into a highly musical family in Asheville, North Carolina, Sutton was soon out picking in the buoyant North Carolina bluegrass scene and performing with his family band. “That was probably my first opportunity to play in front of people,” he tells Fretboard Journal. 

Bryan doesn’t remember exactly what song he first learned, but early favorites included “Freight Train,” “Flowers of Edinburgh,” “Billy in the Low Ground” and the like. He does remember taking his first solo in a jam session on the tune “Cindy.”

Growing up, Sutton started thinking about his future, and a musical path seemed clear. “The context is the late ’80s, a great era of big-name acoustic players in full swing: Jerry Douglas, Bela, Skaggs, Rice. I paid a lot of attention to Douglas. I saw him at all the festivals like Merlefest, heard him on the radio, and had many records he played on as a sideman. Jerry stands out as a role model for me. Not that I could see myself me being front and center when I was imaging what a career in music would be like, but having a consistent presence in the music scene,” he says. “I believed doing any part of what he does was a realistic goal for me. I was stubborn. I had no Plan B when my mom asked what I wanted to do. But I knew in my realistic side I could make a living playing music,” he explains.

Some luck helped, too. His next-door neighbor was a studio piano player who invited him to hang out in a local recording studio that catered to regional musicians. “There was a constant stream of activity, and through being invited there I met the studio guys. I learned that to work in the studios, I had to learn other instruments,” he says. Asheville-area legends David Johnson and gospel singer Karen Pick played key roles in his early career. And his native curiosity and musical drive perfectly meshed with the studio musician culture into which he’d become embedded.

“I wanted to be a studio professional. I am deeply influenced by stuff other than bluegrass, so I wanted to play as many kinds of music as I could. Studio life was it for me.”

From that start, Sutton’s studio career took off as he learned banjo, Dobro, mandolin, electric guitar and more, as he sought to fill any musical niche a producer could need. An obvious talent, he quickly started making the rounds of other regional studios. Before his teens ended, Sutton made inroads into the highly competitive Nashville studio scene, where it’s often get it on the first take or never be called back. “It’s all about getting called back,” Sutton says. “It’s an attitude. You learn quickly and do the things that add to a song outside of what your ego would do. You learn the attitude of a session player.

End of story, right? Asheville’s favorite son Bryan Sutton disappears into the bowels of Nashville’s studio scene and carves out a profitable, but utterly anonymous, musical career, right? Uh, not exactly.

Instead, the bluegrass fates intervened in the form of bass player Mark Fain, whom Bryan had met through several gospel sessions. Fain, who was playing bass for bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs, told Sutton that Skaggs’ utility player had just quit. “Mark recommended me,” he recalls. “I had no time to be intimidated. The day after that I was at his house learning songs. But I was confident I could do it. My skill-set is learning to learn quickly and to think on my feet. So there was some scrambling going on. Learning the fiddle parts with Bobby Hicks was hard. And there were high expectations from Ricky, but no higher than I had for myself.”

Transforming into what Frank Zappa gloriously dubbed the “stunt guitarist” for Kentucky Thunder played a huge role in molding Sutton into a high-energy, creative firestorm of a flatpicking guitarist. “It was [pulling] myself up by my bootstraps. It put me back into playing bluegrass solos and leads, which I hadn’t really done in a long time.”

Much like he had with Jerry Douglas, Sutton studied his new bandleader for clues on how to succeed in a musical career. “I’m an observer, I take notes. Being more of a leader and an entertainer, Skaggs offered a lot for me to learn,” Sutton explains. From there, Sutton’s career blossomed as his lyrical-yet-fiery solos and foundation-setting rhythm playing brought him gigs with Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Dolly Parton, Tim O’Brien, the Dixie Chicks, Chris Thile and his role model, Jerry Douglas.

Solo CDs, starting with 2000’s Ready to Go—the first of six solo works for Sugar Hill Records—became the next platform for bringing Sutton’s unique guitar voice to a wider audience.  He’s won the IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year award a mind-numbing 10 times, with no end in sight.

Reflecting the deep respect and personal popularity he’d earned, in the early 2000s the surviving members of Hot Rize asked Sutton to sit in with the band and eventually officially join as their new guitarist. “That was another great opportunity. I was fortunate to get the call to do that. It was another opportunity for me to be in another situation and to strike a balance between someone else’s [Charles Sawtelle’s] playing and my own sensibilities. Bluegrass is like jazz, where it features a lot of side guys with a bit of a solo voice. So Hot Rize provided great perspective there. It’s a smaller band, so I felt more featured. My part mattered. In the big sound of Skaggs’ band, my rhythm guitar might get lost. But Hot Rize allowed me to not have to play as loud and as hard, so I could dig into what Nick [Forster] does on bass. I get to listen and use space and volume and dynamics. It’s just been a great vehicle for deepening what I do on guitar and how I play bluegrass in an ensemble,” he notes.

For most guitarists, that would be the pinnacle of a career in acoustic music. But as we’ve seen, little about the exceptionally talented Sutton’s career path has been normal. Buoyed by his success, Bryan turned toward becoming more of a solo artist and ultimately, taking cues from legends he’d worked with like Ricky Skaggs and Dolly Parton, he embarked on a solo career. The man who once hired Tim O’Brien and Jeff White to sing lead on his records now approached the front mic as the main vocalist. Renowned worldwide as one of the finest acoustic guitar soloists of the modern era, he also put pen to paper and began composing not just instrumental tunes like his lush, elysian “Overton Waltz” but gorgeous, engaging vocal tunes like “The More I Learn” and the angry protest song “Time Has Come.”

“It really started around 2000. I was a sideman for a lot of people, had an identity as a guitar player. But as a musical chameleon, I took it deeper. It was a calling, a combination of wanting to be part of more musical stuff, a deeper personal investment. I hit a point where I was ready for [a solo career]. There was more for me to do, my own sound, my own writing, to deepen myself as a songwriter and just get better. I’ve always had this thread of individuality, so about five years ago I started looking for more individualized things to do. So I made a decision in 2010 to make it a real format. I drew energy from it. I knew I had to get over any hesitation about writing songs.”   

With a successful solo career and the recognition of being the most accomplished flatpicker of his generation, Bryan Sutton has found the balance he so longs for. Grown to full manhood, the still boyish-looking Sutton now has time to look back, to reflect on his achievements and to find a way to give back. One of the smartest and most articulate musicians I’ve ever interviewed, Sutton searches methodically for new ways to grow and improve, to find new notes on his guitar. He reads sports psychology books for pleasure and utilizes the previsualization routines of top athletes to help prepare for gigs and recording sessions. Avid flatpicking students eagerly flock to his online personalized guitar lessons.

In his own playing, Sutton’s latest works reflect a maturity and confidence. He talks about “getting out of his own way” in his solos, letting his ideas flow naturally through the fingerboard instead of his ego imposing its will on the final sound. 

“I would say I listen [to my own playing] and try to get away from the minutiae of things like pick angles. Consistency is what I’m trying to hear over the long haul. It’s a challenge to flatpick in bluegrass and old-time, a stream of playing, a repeated action. If I can settle into a certain flow that yields consistency from first note to last, that’s the end game. That’s the goal,” he explains intently. “I have to trust what’s already there, to be more honest and pure. I’ve refined a lot of that out of teaching. Flatpicking an acoustic guitar at the speed bluegrassers are looking for is a very physical thing.”

That balanced, emotionally mature musical attitude also infuses his recording projects, like “The More I Learn,” which was recorded live in the studio with the players facing in a circle. Citing his love of Doc Watson and loving the sound of Doc and Merle’s classic Southbound LP, Sutton worked with engineer Brandon Bell to find a more natural recorded sound for his guitars on the newest CD.

“I loved what [Southbound] does sonically, like being in the middle of those guys when they were recording. I’m usually high on [Neumann] KM 54s, but on this record we used some ribbon mics, something with a little more dirt to the sound, to get a less refined kind of sound. I’m a big fan of capturing what you feel when you play, getting those low to mid frequencies that are hard to record. I even referenced Stones records like Let It Bleed. So the challenge was to use them as a guide.”

Producing that open, spacious recorded sound onstage poses a major challenge for all acoustic guitarists, and Sutton has invested enormous time and effort into finding the right stage tone. The biggest revelation, he explains, came when he realized that the vast majority of people who hear him play guitar do so through some sort of electro-mechanical system, whether it’s on a stereo system or through a PA at a festival. “You have to find an acoustic that works on a mic,” he says, explaining how he chooses which guitars to use in various settings. “How is the low end shaped? Some really nice booming instruments will overwhelm a mic. I want clear mids and a dry cut and pop for lead playing. 

“I’m a practical guy, and I look for the best tone for a certain task. My Bourgeois guitars have a large mid-range, not a harsh tone. It’s a thick sound out of those guitars that I like, especially for the live bluegrass stage. And over the last eight to 10 years, I’ve been drawn to vintage stuff. I just want to play what speaks to me and to my hands. It’s part of me digging into being an artist and creating a good live sound. Looking for a guitar that I feel reflects what I ultimately want to hear,” he explains.

As a practical player, Sutton has no qualms straying from the pre-war D-28 mindset of most bluegrassers. “Our tastes in clothing, food and art change, and my tastes in tone have changed. I’m actually a big fan of the L-00s and Martin 0s. They were made in an era when the guitar had to cut through acoustically. So I’m drawn more to that approach. A late-’40s Gibson SJ with dead strings might be right for what I do right now.”

 

From his extensive teaching and workshop schedule, Sutton also has developed a philosophy that helps his students achieve a decidedly focused, balanced approach to improving their guitar skills. 

“I’ve always told people to slow down, to play slowly and precisely and get it right first. Then you can build up speed. It’s a tricky thing. What helps me—and what I try to impart to people trying to improve—is to get out of their own way. It’s not just technique. Guitarists have a battle. It’s the quietest instrument, but it’s also bigger than mandolin or fiddle. So there’s a physical thing here that’s challenging no matter who you are. With people’s expectations for tone, volume and speed, sometimes they tense up and over-control. Getting volume is challenging, and a lot of people don’t realize how hard you have to play to be heard, so they end up forcing things. To me, it’s tension in the shoulders a lot of time. I like what I sound like when my shoulders are settled. I’m not overplaying the guitar. I get more tone and volume through relaxing.” 

Another key element, Sutton stresses, is playing at an even tempo. “Metronome practice is a big deal, because you need to have a consistent groove. You want to create a certain flow and trust that, and that makes your mechanics come into focus more. Metronomes at fast tempos are good for this. You get out of yourself for a second. You need to try to stay calm and to relax a little. It’s not unlike being a cyclist or a long-distance runner or swimmer. You ask yourself, what gears do I have to keep this flow consistent? In guitar playing, we realize that when we learn to trust, we can focus on what’s working and not try to control it.”

 That same philosophy of inner trust has directed Bryan Sutton’s entire career. From studio whiz to monster sideman to the only guitarist worthy of joining Hot Rize to fronting his own band, Sutton has navigated the eddies and swirls of the ever-changing music industry with grace and balance. Improvisation, both in his guitarplaying and his approach to having a career in music, has played a critical role for the guitarist. 

“I think of improvisation as a spirit you approach music in. You allow what wants to come out to come out, but not try to over-control or decide what’s good or bad beforehand. That’s the deep mental game in improvisation,” he explains. “I’ve had nice epiphanies when I listen to myself and react and actively engage in the moment. When I get out of my own way and trust what’s there, I have a better time. We’re all human and have flaws, and sometimes I get in my own way and over-control through fear or mistrust. But I’m continually trying to knock down those barriers and get to something real. And I’m okay being Bryan Sutton, not Chris Thile or Bela or Tony or Julian Lage. I’m a flatpicker and I love bluegrass and fiddle tunes and folk music. So to improvise in that musical system turns into an exciting thing. If I’m playing “St. Anne’s Reel” or whatever, I look for ‘where in the rendering of that tune do I find myself. Where can I get to the improvisation in spirit and be in the moment.’ There are a lot of pitfalls for flatpickers, like blues players always using the same scale shapes. If my heart and soul are in the right spot, I won’t judge that I quote a Tony Rice phrase. There’s a blend in my own music where I can improvise in traditional music and still play within the boundaries, or maybe I should say the expectations of what a bluegrass song should sound like. Whether I am showcasing a song or me, there’s always a balance,” he says.

 “I don’t have to complicate things; I can keep it simple. I spent a lot of years over-complicating things, and I still deal with that on occasion. But I like being connected to the tune, not just blowing over the changes. I need to be inspired by the tune I’m playing at the moment. That’s a healthy thing about improvising in bluegrass and fiddle tunes: it keeps it from being too weighted down by its own history.”