Michael Holland

Well, Jeff Tweedy said it: "You'll never hear it on the radio / Can't hear it on the radio..." That statement may be true for the new release from songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Holland, one-half of Chapel Hill, NC's Jennyanykind, but it's even more likely that Bootlegger's Dreams is right up Mr. Tweedy's alley. The strummed chords and alcohol-soaked vocals of the opening track "Chandelier" seem to take a page straight from the Wilco playbook. The only rub is that this solo collection of Holland's was first released back in 1999, a couple of years before Wilco's "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart". Bootlegger's Dreams was kept under wraps while Jennyanykind released I Need You (2000) and last year's Peas and Collards. Those albums completed the band's shift to roots rock; Bootlegger, meanwhile, reveals what was brewing in Holland's gut at a more visceral level.

Bootlegger's Dreams was inspired by an untitled poem about an anguished moonshine bootlegger contemplating his wife's peaceful sleep. Holland, whose work with Jennyanykind includes the use of spooky slide guitar and melodic bass lines, sought to pursue a couple of different goals with this recording: to reconnect with his southern Appalachian roots, and to make a wedding present for his then-to-be wife. It's not ours to know how successful the latter faired, but it is obvious that Bootlegger is not the bald-faced pastiche of traditional bluegrass music that it might seem. Rather, it is a subtle effort to capture the metaphysical rhythms and motion of Appalachia.

From start to finish Holland employs two distinct conventions to make his point: a continuous 1-2-3 waltz cadence, and a reliance on simple two-chord structures. The rhythm is underscored on the album's second track, a seven and a half minute instrumental entitled "Appalachian Meditation". The beat is a metronomic loop, enveloped by the warm hum of ascending chords played on a Hammond organ. From the outset it's clear this ain't your grandpa's Appalachia. At first blush this seems to reflect the influx of New Age culture into the hills over the course of the past twenty-five years or so -- the building Buddhist temples and hippie communes in places where Daniel Boone once "killed him some bars". But listen again: the pounding might as easily recollect an air-drill applied to a fresh coal seam in Kentucky, or a logger's steady chopping at the base of a she-balsam in North Carolina. An acoustic guitar is noodled with conviction over these rustic textures. Picture John McLaughlin with a guitar, sitting on the porch of a log cabin in the mountains, improvising based on the solitude of the scene. "Play My Guitar" uses similar looping and atmospherics to achieve a comparable effect.

The pace livens with dance numbers like the spirited "Make the Night Last Forever" and the banjo-driven "Something to Believe In" (though the former features eerily disembodied vocals and a disturbingly off-key trumpet). But it's the moments of fragile transparency, like "Heads is Tails" (where Holland combines love and transcendence with the repeated line "I think she is freedom") that leave the deepest impression. An almost religious zeal for love consumes this record. Holland preaches in Solomonesque proverbs:

"Keep your woman happy/
Keep her satisfied/
Eat of her like candy/
Drink of her like wine" ("Love Like Wine")

The poignant "Walk With Me My One" is unabashedly romantic. Against an acoustic lullaby the singer tenderly captures the essence of his love:

"It's not the way you float around/
Or watch the menfolk stammer around you/
It's the way you laugh about them..."

The only misstep on this record is the mysteriously truncated version of "True Feelings". MP3's for all of Bootlegger's tracks were once available on Big John's web site -- long enough for this reviewer to become acquainted with the lyrics. The original mix of "True Feelings" ended with the strongest thematic statement on the whole album: "While you sit in the dark strumming your broken guitar / I'll be out in the sun loving and laughing". Running time does not seem to be of the essence here, so it is unclear why the final verse was chopped off. Thankfully, a howling harmonica solo that blows right through the brooding ambience of the piece remains intact.

Bootlegger's Dreams provides an excellent insight into how Michael Holland worked out a logical musical rhetoric for himself before bringing those energies back to his band. By his own admission he did not write this music for mass consumption, but what serious artist does? The integration of theme and purpose make this a worthwhile listen -- even if you can't find it on the radio.

— 29 September 2004 - Pop Matters

"My people perish for a lack of vision."

That cannot be said of Michael Holland. With the release of his second solo album Tomorrows American Treasures, Holland maintains his extraordinary focus, showing his astute respect for traditional American music while varnishing it with enough trippy nuance to keep it vital.

The opening track unveils this engaging sub-universe: "Crystal Meth Freak from California", is a jam grass piece with stringed instruments plucking along as smoothly as a new Honda engine; but at the 2:13 mark we are treated to a spacey synthesizer solo. And dang if it doesn't fit just perfectly. The same can be said for the welcomed intrusion of Holland's signature organ work on other tracks, giving his tunes a warm undercurrent that buoys the banjos and fiddles. He even manages to create a new sub-genre -- call it "reggae grass" -- with "Nobody Loves Me, Nobody Cares".

But this isn't the smug tomfoolery that often crops up in other attempts to reinvent bluegrass for the masses. In fact, it is a mistake to call Treasures a straight bluegrass album. Rather, Holland melds it into other elements with same loving care that he has shown in the past for the blues. Whether it's Clarksdale or Clarksville, he draws from their deep springs without merely aping either.

A survey of the album's titles and themes is revealing. In the old days, for example, singers in southern Appalachia consoled themselves over the loss of loved ones by asserting that one day they would reunite "on that distant shore". Holland transforms that metaphor into "Mountains of the Moon", a gorgeous track that aches like a lonely coyote. The traditional "Pretty Polly" was among the major murder ballads of the Anglo-American catalog. The original story involved a young (possibly pregnant) maiden enticed to ride into the woods with her lover who stabs her and leaves her in a shallow grave. Holland's "Oh Pretty Polly" contains a similar invitation, but here it is to escape the oppression of religious ritual and find the divine in a road adventure. The "Old Slewfoot" of yesteryear (the devil, or a vicious bear) is reconstituted as "King Heartache" ("he'll claw out your eyes").

"Since I Lay My Burden Down", borrows its title from a line in the old African-American spiritual "Glory, Glory Hallelujah". Here, the mystical unburdening comes not through contrition and penance, but in finding that person upon whom one's love can rest:

I'm sitting with a bird in my hand
Since I lay my burden down
And I'm watching for every grain of sand Since I lay my burden down

This piece dissolves the fictitious boundary between the sacred and profane and revels in the spirituality of the mundane. This has been Holland's special gift, dating back to his days with Jennyanykind. His love songs have always been charged with a sense of immanence. That this track captures him in a live gig, alone with his guitar, makes the message more evocative.

But unlike his previous solo album Bootlegger's Dreams (2003) Holland is not alone here. He surrounds himself with Big Fat Gap, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based bluegrass band named for one of the most remote and obscure places in eastern United States (located in the Joyce Kilmer backcountry of the North Carolina/Tennessee border). Big Fat Gap is described thusly: "A bluegrass band that has no plans to take Nashville by storm. Some of them even have day jobs. They just like to pick, they like each other, and it shows."

Don't you just love that? If memory serves me correctly, Holland also has a day job, which creates not only a perfect match but gives that requisite sense of balance between day and night, light and dark. These guys know something about everyday reality that gets lost too easily with many musicians. After a recent visit to a local club to catch another band, a buddy of mine opined to another, "wouldn't be great to quit our jobs and start playing like this?" Not for me. This set-up between Michael Holland and Big Fat Gap embodies the combination of transcendence and concrete reality that characterized all the great old-time musicians. The most enduring music has come down to us, after all, from people who worked all day on farms and in factories, then played at night.

Big Fat Gap is a remarkably unobtrusive bluegrass band. There are no ostentatious, look-at-me solos. But the playing is deft and complimentary, these guys paying attention to the lyrics. Take "Crystal Meth Freak" for example: when Holland sings "when you pick up the phone does it speak to you?" Bobby Britt plays a fiddle lick that taunts and mocks the drug dealer. On the supine "Lazy Summer Day" Jamie Dawson's mandolin answers every line with the earthy "bark" that Bill Monroe always coaxed out of his instrument. This happy cadre then rambles through the stomping "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring", a five-plus-minute jam that contains a simple but pithy exhortation to those dispossessed and disenfranchised: "Tonight we're sleeping under the bridges But who knows what tomorrow may bring."

Ryan Cavanaugh's banjo arises from the mix like sunlight shimmering on the asphalt. It's yet another to be added to Holland's knapsack of tunes well-suited for the road. With a well-rounded group of musicians following Michael Holland's vision, Tomorrows American Treasures is a reminder that the music of this country's by-ways will never perish.

— 8 November 2005 - Pop Matters

TW LW Artist: CD Title: Label: Weeks On: Location:
1 1 JERRY DOUGLAS THE BEST KEPT SECRET KOCH 10 TN
2 2 THE WOODYS TELLURIDE TO TENNESSEE EVERETT FAMILY 9 TN
3 3 TIM O'BRIEN CORNBREAD NATION SUGAR HILL 10 TN
4 4 RONNIE BOWMAN IT'S GETTIN' BETTER ALL THE TIME KOCH 9 TN
5 5 SOUTH AUSTIN JUG BAND DARK & WEARY WORLD BLUE CORN 10 TX
6 8 TIM O'BRIEN FIDDLER'S GREEN SUGAR HILL 9 IL
7 7 DEL MCCOURY BAND THE COMPANY WE KEEP SUGAR HILL 11
8 6 DREW EMMITT ACROSS THE BRIDGE COMPASS 11 CO
9 14 PEASALL SISTERS HOME TO YOU DUALTONE 10
10 11 MICHAEL HOLLAND TOMORROW'S AMERICAN TREASURES SIT-N-SPIN 3
11 19 CHERRYHOLMES CHERRYHOLMES SKAGGS FAMILY 10
12 15 THE BISCUIT BURNERS A MOUNTAIN APART INDIDOG RECORDS 9
13 9 THE GREENCARDS WEATHER & WATER DUALTONE (RED) 12
14 25 3 FOX DRIVE LISTEN TO THE MUSIC KOCH 10
15 12 HACKENSAW BOYS LOVE WHAT YOU DO NETTWERK 10
16 16 VARIOUS ARTIST BELL WITCH: THE MOVIE PENNY JAR 11
17 43 WILDFIRE RATTLE OF THE CHAINS PINECASTLE 9
18 30 HONI DEATON & DREAM PROMISE TO A SOLDIER CMG 6
19 13 JANET BEAZLEY 5 SOUTH BACKCOUNTRY 9
20 20 BYRON BERLINE BAND OIL IN MY LAMP DOUBLE STOP 9 - Roots Music Report

Break On Through
You might not know these up-and-comers yet,
but we think you should.

Modern-Day Mountain Man

His music is described as folk,
Appalachian, bluegrass, and
sometimes even “reggae grass”
and “jam grass.” But whatever
you want to call it, it works.
Because it’s Michael
Holland.
By James Mayfield

Though he’s been making music since he
was eight years old, Michael Holland hasn’t
exactly reached household-name status …
yet. But it’s not for lack of talent or work
ethic on his part. The 37-year-old North
Carolina–based singer-songwriter possessesboth
qualities in spades.
From 1992 to 2003, Holland fronted
Jennyanykind, an alternative-rock-based
quartet that saw the release of eight albums.
After the band’s breakup, Holland
pursued a solo career and his own take on
what would be folk music to some, Appalachian
to others — a melting pot of bluegrass
and acoustic guitar-based tunes that
came together in 2004 with his debut Bootlegger’s
Dreams and gained momentum on
last year’s follow-up Tomorrows American
Treasures.
The latter features a combination of sixstring
strums, banjo picks, fiddle, organ,
upright bass, and a mandolin, courtesy of
the Chapel Hill outfit known as Big Fat Gap
Bluegrass, which assists Holland in bringing
into the modern age what Flatt and
Scruggs, Charlie Poole, and the Carter Family
brought down from the mountain.
Holland cites Miles Davis and his album
In a Silent Way as a major influence on his
recent material. “[In a Silent Way] was a
very cinematic record,” he says. “They just
played, and [Davis] would take passages
that he liked and edit them together. We
would play for 10 minutes and roll through
all these chord changes, and then I would
go back and just pick one little 10-second
loop that I thought really summed up the
idea or sounded good.”
After self-producing both of his solo records,
Holland is working with an outside
producer for his next album, something
he hasn’t done since Jennyanykind’s 1996
Elektra release Revelater. “I want to move
forward with the kind of feel that we went
with on Tomorrows American Treasures
— which, basically, was no feel. It happened
very improvisationally. But I want to hand
over the engineering reins to somebody
else,” he explains.
With 12 tracks already complete (working
titles include “I Remember Leslie Riddle”
and “Train Called Locomotive Dreams”),
Holland is well on his way to completing his
third record in as many years. Next month
he can be found at the GrassRoots Festival
of Music and Dance in Trumansburg, New
York (July 20 to 23). - American Airlines - American Way Magazine June 2006

Here is an interesting production that cannot make up its mind whether it's a bluegrass or country project. This dilemma seems to mirror the career of Michael Holland who was a founding member of the rock band Jennyanykind and later drifted into a more folk and acoustic style. In this latest recording, he establishes himself as a modern day troubadour and deals with such diverse subjects as A.P. Carter confidant Lesley Riddle and Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph. His influences include various legends including Earl Scruggs, Blind Boy Fuller, Hank Williams, and the Carter Family. On the numbers "Please Please Please" and "Starry Nights," the performances are country in style, while "Bill Payne And Wash Turner" and "Bring Back That Blue Eyed Joy" are more bluegrass oriented. Michael Holland is one of those unique artists whose music cannot be neatly placed into a single musical genre, and "Simple Truths And Pleasures" certainly proves this. - Bluegrass Unlimited

Rounder Recording Artists Dean and Britta have recorded a cover of Michael Holland's "Since I Lay My Burden Down" for an upcoming EP to be released in October 2006. - folkbomb

Michael Holland, though immersed in the heart and soul of American (cosmic) music, proves esoteric in the cogitation of his music. With Tomorrow’s American Treasures, Holland employs the tools of classic American Appalachia, folk wanderlust, jazz’s improvisational freedom and poetic romanticism in this collection of songs that delicately caresses the depths of the human spirit. He uses archetypal imagery and language in conjunction with musical form in a way that fosters a contemporary relevance different from those of today’s ill-pegged “freak folk” genre. His embrace of the historic provides a foundation and validity for his honesty and sensitivity to the human condition.

The Big Fat Gap bluegrass band, comprised of some of central North Carolina’s hottest pickers and players, is perfectly suited for Holland’s intention and their collaboration is dead-on in its execution and creativity delivered here. Mandolin and fiddle lend buoyant optimism to “Pretty Polly.” “Crystal Meth Freak from California,” a song I started my day with for about four weeks, delivers the mindscape of the “freak” and is marked by a most oddly befitting keyboard solo.

The familiar conjoined with the abstract is a construct Holland uses without fail, with the exception of the narrative “Look Out for King Heartache.” “Lighten up Angel” gently summons the allure, tenderness, and tone of Van Morrison (“Into the Mystic”) and exudes the thematic message and sentiment of assurance and hope, ”Tonight we’re sleeping under the bridges, but who knows what tomorrow may bring.” The record’s unity is augmented by the intimacy of the close-knit, live recording. The perfectly mapped sequencing provides a connectedness that delivers a rejuvenation and awakening to the essential message of optimism and hope relevant in the record’s entirety. There is a timeliness to Tomorrow’s American Treasures that could be overlooked by the casual listener who might not recognize that this is not just another folk/bluegrass album. Michael Holland has succeeded in creating something rooted in the historic that has special significance in the now.

— Bill Bryson - Satellite Magazine

Ask around, and soon enough someone will tell you Jennyanykind should have been one of the Triangle's chief musical emissaries. Sure, the trio of brothers Mark and Mike Holland and Thomas Royal released six albums and an EP between 1993 and 2003 (including one on the major Elektra and two on a young Yep Roc), but their dynamic, shifty indie rock never reached Superchunk or Archers heights. Why cry over spilled milk, though, when the cream left in the jug tastes so sweet? Simple Truths and Pleasures is the third album Michael Holland has released since Jennyanykind disbanded and the second he's recorded with members of area bluegrass collective Big Fat Gap. It's Holland's most traditional disc yet, but it still feels vibrant and fresh, like an accomplished player and writer finally finding his way home. Rooted in North Carolina lore and homestead loneliness, it's a welcome arrival.

Apropos of its title, Simple Truths and Pleasures is full of characters looking for a little relief and maybe a little joy but never expecting too much. There's the "Ballad of Eric Rudolph," wherein the Atlanta Olympics bomber who hid in the North Carolina mountains for five years shares his version of truth with a relentless sheriff, a tough judge and a faceless jury. In "Starry Nights," Holland worries about love in the face of his own mortality as he stares at the stars, and the hot banjo lead of "Bring Back that Blue-Eyed Joy" twitters like the nervous vocalist, who wants to hold "something I can be sure of." And "Lesley Riddle," named for one of several country music patriarchs who called North Carolina home, looks at music as an emotional panacea, a cure no matter "how bleak my situation."

With 14 tracks, Truths starts to blur through its final third, though the concluding pair—led by the gentle guitar thump of "Dreams Beyond Compare" and capped by the banjo charms of the sweet "A Life of Ease"—lifts the loose ends. But Simple Truths and Pleasures isn't meant to be a neat record in a compact, 10-tracks-and-out form. Rather, Holland's ambition seems to have been to create an intimate, representative portrait of hill-old traditions in learned-and-thoughtful, young hands. If it takes 14 tracks to mix comfort and unease and to build a new myth for the Tar Heel State, so be it. On all of those counts, Holland—folklorist, chronicler, storyteller, conduit, songwriter—succeeds. - Independent Weekly

All siblings have their differences, even twins. Consider twin brothers Mark and Michael
Holland, who have taken divergent paths since their former band, Jennyanykind, dissolved in 2003. As Jule Brown, Mark still makes mystic, blues-toned roots-rock that’s a logical extension of Jennyanykind. But Michael has pursued a folksier course on his three solo albums, including this latest one. It’s aptly titled, a disarmingly straightforward collection that delivers often-thorny truths with a smile. Working with the Big Fat Gap Bluegrass Band, Holland presides over a back porch hootenanny that makes history go down easy (a working knowledge of Tarheel lore isn’t necessary, but it helps). Real life characters include Carter Family crony Lesley Riddle, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, and Depression-era serial criminals Bill Payne and Wash Turner – all of whom are on the lam in one way or another. But Holland sounds like he’s exactly where he ought to be.
- David Menconi
- No Depression

North Carolina native Michael Holland has been an Americana sensation for more than 15 years, both as a solo performer and as a member of the acclaimed Jennyanykind. His most recent effort, Simple Truths and Pleasures, may be the best overall collection of folk, bluegrass and country he's ever put together.

Starting with the hard-core country weeper "How Long Will She Make Me Wait?" and concluding with "Life of Ease," there simply isn't a bum track in the bunch. Holland's appealing, reedy voice conveys the natural splendor and pain of the rural experience like legends Hank Williams Sr. and Merle Haggard. Add in a top-flight group of fingerpickers (John Garris on Dobro and Carl Jones on mandolin) and this is about as close to hayseed nirvana as one is likely to find.

Holland's work has been described as "pre-Nashville," and that is certainly a compliment considering the slick brand of shit coming out of there. Holland's sincerity of expression has absolutely nothing to do with the trench coats, fake patriotism and mullets of current country. Simple Truths and Pleasures is a rare example of truth in advertising, a paean to a time when music was made for back porches and barn raisings instead of beer commercials.

-Daryll Smyer - Dallas Observer