We are lucky to have Warren Haynes as local talent. The Asheville, NC bred artist moved to the East Village decades ago and is now ‘burbing it up in Westchester. He tapped New Jersey’s Railroad Earth to flesh out a group of songs that he had written over many years including one penned with Phil Lesh that he performs in this WFUV Live session. The fiddle and mandolin of Railroad Earth make for an unprecedented kind of Warren Haynes project – as does his slide playing and use of a hollow body guitar. Ashes and Dust is just his third ever solo album apart from The Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule.
Click HERE to hear the WFUV Live session with Warren speaking about the project – among other things – and see killer versions of Spots of Time (the one co-written with Lesh) and Is It Me Or You recorded with Railroad Earth in our Bronx studios.
It’s been brilliant to get to know Warren a little bit over the course of four interviews over three years. He’s always generous with his time and he’s got an amazing memory. I brought up the first time I ever met him which was at a show in New York in the early 1990’s when he jammed with The Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies and he was able to offer some details about it that not only confirmed my memory (which I’m almost a little suspicious of) but which were striking in their specificity. That’s the kind of recall he has.
The first time we spoke with a camera or tape rolling was at The Beacon Theater just prior to a special New Year’s Eve Gov’t Mule show that honored Albert King, Freddie King, and BB King at the end of 2012. That was also the time when the Georgia Bootleg Box had just come out. You have your choice of the produced 2 minute version that aired on NY1 or the unedited Warren Haynes Interview (8 minute version) remarkable for his comments about Duane Allman, Billy Gibbons, and power trios.
Our second powwow was when Shout by Gov’t Mule came out in 2013. Click HERE to listen to our conversation and his solo performances (with video) of a pair of Gov’t Mule tunes from that disc. As with the other WFUV session, this interview is more in-depth and free-flowing than the television interviews with time for fascinating asides about playing with Dicky Betts before he joined the Allmans and his affection for Creedence Clearwater Revival and Deep Purple.
Earlier this summer I met Warren at the Capitol Theater. That meeting produced the 2 minute piece – New Album: Ashes & Dust. There’s some great stuff from that interview that couldn’t fit into the NY1 piece which I’ll unleash one of these days. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy all this other Haynesy goodness.
