An interview with fiddler Jason Carter is featured on the latest episode of JamBase partner Osiris Media’s Inside Out w/ Turner & Seth podcast. The longtime Del McCoury Band and The Travelin’ McCourys member spoke about both acts, his recently released Lowdown Hoedown solo album, collaborating with Phish at 1999’s Camp Oswego, Billy Strings and much more with hosts Rob Turner and Seth Weiner.
Carter, who is part of the lineup for the 11th annual Holiday Hootenanny benefit concert in Atlanta next month, enlisted a bevy of guests for Lowdown Hoedown including Strings and Phish drummer Jon Fishman. The fiddler discussed performing with Fish and how he “plays so tastefully” both in concert and on Lowdown Hoedown towards the middle of the episode before sharing memories from Camp Oswego.
While Jason Carter was unfamiliar with Phish coming into the 1999 festival, he remembers being shocked to see a crowd of 80,000 Phish fans. “We got up there and we played our own set and then we got up with [Phish],” Carter recalled. “While we were on stage with them somebody broke a string and [Phish guitarist] Trey [Anastasio] said ‘Why don’t you guys do one of those fiddle/banjo duet things that you do?’ And it’s just me and Rob McCoury playing a fiddle tune with just a fiddle and banjo. Man, I immediately just got completely nervous.”
“We can’t do this after this wall of sound and drums and everything in front of all these people,” Carter thought at the time and that Phish fans “are gonna hate us.” However, the situation turned out well. “We started on this thing and all those people they just continued dancing and they’re smiling from ear-to-ear and it took about 10 seconds into the song to know everything was alright.”
It was Del McCoury who broke a string during “Beauty Of My Dreams.” Listen to an audience recording of the entire show queued to Jason Carter and Rob McCoury’s duet below:
Jason Carter went on to explain what makes both Del McCoury and Billy Strings so special. Other topics hit upon over the course of the fiddler’s chat with Turner and Weiner were songwriting, how he picked the songs for Lowdown Hoedown, what the future holds for The Travelin’ McCourys, Del McCoury stories and much more.
Stream Jason Carter’s appearance on Inside Out w/ Turner & Seth below:
