Pioneering A New Style: The Musical and Cultural Synthesis of Larry & Joe
The international duo's unique style “Latingrass” blends bluegrass, old time and Llanera music, and weaves in themes of social justice and environmentalism
Thanks for checking out this text version of the podcast series Southern Songs and Stories! This post is a continuation of our Substack series of posts giving you the scripts of our audio and transcripts of our interviews. To hear the episode, simply search for Southern Songs and Stories on any podcast app, or visit us at southernsongsandstories.com for that and much more.
Update: August continues to be a huge month for live music over here. Following AVL Fest at the beginning of the month, I got to catch (finally!) Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit in Asheville, NC, as well as a new listening room series with Fancy and the Gentlemen at The Songstage in Hendersonville, NC.
Also, there was my time with Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, when they played Charlotte. They are headlining the Earl Scruggs Music Festival and will be in a 25+ band lineup along with our current podcast guests Larry & Joe, and recent guest Marty Stuart. Stay tuned for our episode based on that interview with Ketch next week, and please come out to the Earl Scruggs Fest where I will be emceeing all Labor Day weekend, and interviewing artists for future podcasts!
Joe Kendrick (left) and Ketch Secor (right) of Old Crow Medicine Show after recording Ketch’s interview
Larry & Joe
Here is the script and transcript of our latest podcast:
[“Gabanjo” by Larry & Joe, performed live on WNCW 01/18/24]
What makes music original? What makes one song more compelling than another? Why does one style of music take off and become popular, while another loses fans over time? I would put forward that it all comes down to synthesis -- how effectively different elements in music combine to form something new and unique, which is the life blood of music, and art in general. While it may be true, as the proverb goes, that there is nothing new under the sun, there are plenty of new ways to put together old ideas and traditions, and that is key to making art that leaps off the page or the stage.
When you think of bluegrass, you may regard it as, perhaps, an old tradition. It would be easy to forget how many older forms of music went into bluegrass when it burst on the scene in the mid 1940s, but it fused string band music with jazz, blues, and gospel music for starters, each of which having had their own well of musical ideas to draw from in their own beginnings.
Bluegrass has proved to be an incredibly versatile foundation for a great number of styles that came after its birth, with bands and artists being categorized as any number of monikers ahead of the suffix “grass”: “Newgrass”, “Jamgrass”, “Chambergrass” and on and on. All of these variations on the style have served to reinvigorate and expand bluegrass music at each turn, helping to both bring in new audiences to these musical offshoots as well as the older body of work from which they sprung.
And now, we arrive at “Latingrass”, with bluegrass, old time and Llanera music coming together in the duo Larry & Joe. Larry Bellorin hails from Venezuela, and is a master of the harp as well as the 4-string guitar called the cuatro, while Joe Troop is an Earl Scruggs-style banjo player and multi-instrumentalist from North Carolina. Leaning towards the Latin side of the grass is the song you are hearing now, titled “Gabanjo”, which they performed live on public radio WNCW in January 2024, a song which is on their 2023 album Nuevo South Train.
I spoke with Larry and Joe at the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, NC, ahead of their performance for the Scruggs’ Center’s Center Stage series in July 2024. They are also part of the lineup at the upcoming Earl Scruggs Music Festival in Tryon, NC over labor day weekend. In our conversation, we talk in depth about the duo’s synthesis of musical styles and cultures, we discover why the harp became so popular in Venezuela, and we get into how their music often has themes of social justice with songs and lyrics about immigration and border issues in particular, and their conviction that cultural differences can be overcome without violence and discrimination. Plus, a tutorial on how to roll your r’s! That, and more music from Larry and Joe is all ahead in this episode.
I’m your host Joe Kendrick, welcoming you to our episode on Larry & Joe here on Southern Songs and Stories.
[SSaS theme song and intro with VO by Joe K]
We met in the green room of the Earl Scruggs Center’s performance space, which was once the country courthouse in the middle of downtown Shelby, North Carolina, with Joe interpreting for Larry in our conversation. I commented about the three-finger roll that Earl Scruggs made famous, and how that combination of styles and ideas that made bluegrass so interesting is the same thing that is going on with their own “Latingrass”, just with ideas and cultures that are geographically farther apart. Here is Joe Troop:
00:07:30 Joe Troop
Right. We always talk about how. Appalachian string band music, bluegrass, old time music has a lot to do with music, gianera and music from the Yano music, from the Plains region of Venezuela. It's string band music, so they instead of playing banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar and bass. They play the harp, the quattro, the base, and. That. Other instruments we don't know so well in the states like the, which is like a Baroque style guitar or beautiful 4 string guitar like instrument. And they even have a minor percussion instrument. The maracas is part of their tradition, but it's it's pretty much string band music, just like we play in Appalachia, so.
It's it's it's a cool merging of traditions we think are folk traditions are like long lost cousins or maybe cousins. Yeah, they're long lost. They never met each other, and then they had these parallel lives, but then they they do, we were just talking about that, like Larry and I play a song. One of a song that I wrote called “Love along the way”, which is straight up bluegrass or old time. It's Appalachian string band music. It's where bluegrass and old time meet. That's a. Particularly beautiful spot in the music for me, having kind of grown up at the Galax Fiddlers Convention, it's like a merge.
Sort of it it. It's when bluegrass still was kind of old time, like, think Flatt & Scruggs. You know, there's a lot of old time influence there. Anyway, lots of harps. You've heard the Celtic harp play bluegrass. People play bluegrass on the classical harp, but the the only harp that really captures the. The sort of rustic vibe of bluegrass, the right way to our ears is the Venezuelan harp funneling. And so it just kind of is this sort of mysterious. Coincidence. But it it gives good results.
00:09:51 Larry Bellorin
See and metro folklore. Low mass A as a.
00:10:02 Joe Troop
Reiterating in our folk traditions, our folk traditions are basically defined by strings.
00:10:15 Larry Bellorin
Musica de alma.
00:10:17 Joe Troop
And but for me, what really represents our folk traditions is that their music styles played from the soul.
00:10:25 Larry Bellorin
Yemi emocionante pensar. In Como esta personas in a chaos.
00:10:35 Joe Troop
And it's very inspirational for me to think that people. From that, that era where. Able to create these sounds. You know people like Earl and the people that Earl was listening to and was surrounded by way back in the day. We were just talking about that how often times it was from humble backgrounds, not not a lot of resources to to go to the Conservatory. And take all these and these were farmers, basically.
[“Love Along the Way” by Larry & Joe, performed live on WNCW 01/18/24, excerpt]
That is a bit of “Love Along the Way” by Larry & Joe, performed live on WNCW in January 2024. After hearing Joe’s comment about the humble nature of the string band traditions in Venezuela, I noted that the harp seemed to be an expensive instrument for that context. Here is Larry Bellorin:
00:11:27 Larry Bellorin
El arpanet.
00:11:32 Joe Troop
In Venezuela, it was not as easy to get a yanera a plane harp.
00:11:40 Larry Bellorin
Pavan.
00:11:42 Joe Troop
Because the first people that made. The instrument were in the flatlands themselves, and I must I I should note, Larry is actually from the eastern side of Venezuela, this music, music where they play this 33 string harp is played in Western Venezuela. So in his case it was very hard. It's like it was like trying to buy a banjo in California. In the 80s, I guess.
00:12:10 Joe Kendrick
Let me ask. There are regional differences in instruments, sometimes because of climate and, for example, the the guitar in one region is not nearly as as ideal in, you know, less arid region where things like this have some. Influence on why? The instruments wound up where they did, but why did the harp wind up in Western Venezuela?
00:12:52 Joe Troop
Pacific.
00:12:59 Larry Bellorin
Arpino.
00:13:06 Joe Troop
So precisely because this harp Is a descendant of the innards of a piano.
00:13:16 Larry Bellorin
And tosses a label, campesino porla pour La Vista.
00:13:25 Joe Troop
So some farmer back in the day, having seen the innards of a piano in western Venezuela.
00:13:33 Larry Bellorin
Saint Bento estar para totalmente.
00:13:38 Joe Troop
Invented this harp.
00:13:42 Joe Troop
With a an axe at the point of, you know, like with an axe and a knife, he says. Yeah, it's like putting the innards of a piano upright and sticking a box on the.
00:14:11 Larry Bellorin
National.
00:14:13 Joe Troop
El cedro Marco. So the there's this word called cedro amargo, which I'm going to translate probably poorly as bitter cedar and. There was a lot of that, apparently in western Venezuela.
00:14:32 Larry Bellorin
Sonido bonito.
00:14:34 Joe Troop
And it was a very noble wood that gave a beautiful sound pretty sound.
00:14:42 Joe Troop
But it it obviously just like the banjo, it has transformed through the eras. Yeah, Mucho said Margo and Eliano. OK, so they they overharvested it at the time there was a lot of this wood in Western Venezuela, but it's unfortunately apparently all been cut down they. The wood was so beautiful, people started using it for kitchens and and cabinets and all that.
Good stuff.
00:15:22 Larry Bellorin
No tiene la variation de la cuatro passiones firmes.
00:15:26 Joe Troop
Yeah, Venezuela doesn't have Four Seasons.
00:15:30 Larry Bellorin
Porque annual national.
00:15:38 Joe Troop
And throughout the whole country, the climate is very similar until you go to the. Balance the Andes.
00:15:48 Larry Bellorin
In the sense and instrumento. La Madera and Conqueror de le passion. Where the function not perfect I mean.
00:15:57 Joe Troop
OK, so he's saying that the wood wherever you are in Venezuela works. You can't say the same thing in the state of the United States, which we're learning as road dogs. His poor Quadro does OK in North Carolina, but after several trips to the desert that there's more cracks in that than. The aftermath of a bull in the. China shop so.
[jump to]
00:18:31 Joe Kendrick
Would like to ask you about themes of social justice, economic equality, a lot of those themes that come around in your music and I would like to know what you think about how that adds to or perhaps. That finds the experience. Of your music. What does that mean out there in the world? Do you? Get you know. Blowback for this in certain places. You know. How is this translated to what's happening on the ground in, say, your own communities or out there? The people that are listening to your music?
00:19:09 Joe Troop
Yeah. So. For those of you listeners that may not know, I I have in in my career. Again, I'm the Joe of Larry and Joe. Larry is the Venezuelan guy. I'm the guy from North Carolina. I I have touched on themes such as immigration reform and. And even even in this pairing, Larry is an asylum seeker and we work together. So I mean, the the truths are self-evident. Like we believe in sort of you know, a borderless world in our hearts where you know, of course. It's not a borderless. But we believe in expression beyond borders and borders are hotspots. They're, you know, they're. They're very dangerous places where people are preyed upon, and there's a lot of hardship. There's a lot of tragedy. It's definitely a sight for sore eyes. A lot of these themes came into my work because I have spent a lot of time. On the Mexican American border and working specifically with migrants, Latin American migrants of different places and so is there pushback or blowback? I I don't know. I feel like you know.
The message isn't heavy-handed. The message is is pretty. I mean it's it's of love and unity and people who would push back against that. Of course, there's plenty of people who don't. For some reason they don't understand love and. I don't know it. It's like a. It's like a sickness. Do we get pushed back? You know, most of the crowds we play for people that are going out to listen to live music. I think the people who would push back, they're not interested in going out to listen to live music. So we're spoiled. We're in the, you know, we're we're we get. We're in the arts community and and people who are going to take. A Thursday night to come sit in a room and watch people play their instruments, so there's a predisposition towards, I guess. You know.
What would you call that? Love. Because, I mean, you know, music kind of. Musicians were lucky because people love music and therefore we get showered in love and affection. So, honestly, the blowback hadn't been that much. But you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't appreciate the message and. You know, maybe they're polite enough to not come up and share their hatred with us, so I don't know. It seems it seems like. You know, they're they're they're. People are there. For what Larry and I are putting out in the world, I'll translate this to him and see what he. Has to say.
This brings us to the song “Border Wall” by Larry & Joe, which closes out their collection Nuevo South Train. Joe Troop wrote the melody and first verse of this song while on the border wall in Nogales, México while volunteering at a shelter for asylum seekers in the summer of 2021, six months before he and Larry met in North Carolina. It was there that Joe says the misery on display shook him to the core, and the turmoil for people on both sides of the border inspired him to write the song. Larry & Joe’s manager suggested that Larry write a verse in Spanish, and that they find a third co-writer: enter sacred steel master DaShawn Hickman.
[“Border Wall” by Larry & Joe, from Nuevo South Train, excerpt]
00:22:07 Joe Kendrick
It's just such a heated topic now, especially with the polarization in our culture and immigration and and just what's happening in our hemisphere alone with. Crises all around, and I wonder, with you being sort of, you know, I don't want to say say it the wrong way, but you're.
00:22:21 Joe Troop
Yeah.
00:22:30 Joe Kendrick
You're out there in front of this, right? And so I just wondered if, like, on the ground, like what, what that might look like to you too, to like, what are people saying to you about this?
00:22:46 Joe Troop
Where we experience more of that and I'll ask Larry, I think it's more outside. Of our musical. Lives like and track in Hays, KS. So they they go. OK, so like racism and xenophobia and and those things and the exacerbation of this, the Marines are to blame kind of mentality that, you know, saying whatever accent the migrants are to blame, you know?
You can hear it in any flavor of American English. It's not just the South. We experienced a pretty heavy dose of that in Kansas of all places we were driving across on I-70. We stop. In this little diner in Hays, KS, and and I'll ask Larry what happened.
We're just going in there to sit down and eat and keep on trucking.
00:23:52 Larry Bellorin
Jack London entrance. Como Poco pesado para para pacifico?
00:24:05 Joe Troop
And as I went in there and looked around, it was a very heavy situation for me specifically.
00:24:12 Joe Troop
Awaited situation.
00:24:16 Larry Bellorin
Toma El pedido.
00:24:19 Joe Troop
They took our order, they said it's going. To take this long.
00:24:23 Larry Bellorin
Cinco minutos? Yeah, minuto minutos.
00:24:25 Joe Troop
5 minutes later, 10 minutes later, 15 minutes.
00:24:33 Larry Bellorin
Morals.
00:24:33 Joe Troop
And we just realized we were getting ignored.
00:24:38 Joe Troop
Familiar. Yeah. This family sat right beside us. They got there after us right away. And then they they came back and said.
00:24:53 Larry Bellorin
Thomas.
00:24:53 Joe Troop
It's gonna be 20 minutes later, 45 minutes after we've been sitting there. And you know what I mean? It was obvious. It was obvious there was. Everyone was looking at Larry.
And you just and he said. And I just wish I could have disappeared at that moment.
00:25:10 Larry Bellorin
Not not innocent till commute.
00:25:14 Joe Troop
And it's not like it's not just like you get sad and you feel like you're getting kicked.
00:25:21 Joe Troop
So yeah, I mean, does this stuff happen? I'm so, you know, sometimes we'll be waiting in line for something at some place in Middle America or some place in some city or something, and that the treatment that, that.
00:25:36 Joe Troop
We get is different.
00:25:38 Joe Troop
Until the whoever is doing that realizes that we're together, or sometimes it's even worse when they realize they're together. They treat me, you know, with some sort of like. You know, ‘What kind of white boy are you?’ kind of thing. You know what I mean? I mean, that is very alive and well in in this country. You know, so.
[jump to]
00:31:36 Joe Kendrick
Well, your music is going to be serving to, to break down some of those barriers on certain levels. So I imagine there's satisfaction in that is -- how much of that is your purpose or is that just a great benefit?
00:31:52 Joe Troop
Yeah, well, no, inclusion is definitely a big part of our message. That.
00:32:01 Larry Bellorin
Porque entre Elio Suzette here.
00:32:04 Joe Troop
Between me and him that we got some sort of magic where people should see themselves reflected. Because it's very it's very obvious that we're from different nationalities, but we have learned to live in community. With one another.
00:32:35 Larry Bellorin
Univision. The keka presentacion. In making musica?
00:32:41 Joe Troop
And we believe that every show of ours is more than music.
Harmonious. Yeah. And we hope that people can see how far you can come by being in harmony with one another. And you know the the inverse of of these situations that we've been talking about happened to me when we're with, you know, like the like, Larry is a good buddy to me because, you know, I. The flip side of that sometimes when we're around, you know, larger groups of Latinos or Venezuelans, they're like basically, like, who's this? Who's this white boy? Like, what? You're not. You're not part of this. I get, you know, cut out and I and I and I I defend myself because, you know, I lived that I was. In Latin America for 10 years like I was, I was working in pesos. Dinos, I wasn't. I wasn't at tourista. I wasn't. Down there on vacation. I really. I I I, I I did live down there and I lived in that economy and I would defend myself. I'd be like, you know. Yeah, I have an American passport. It's not. I mean, I have the benefit of like I could go back there and I could, you know, and. And I probably will go back and live with the benefit of being able to work in that currency etcetera. But for the time being, I'm right here, right here with you. Also get off my back like so we we experience you know it's it's it's it's a holistically different experience but it allows me to empathize with. Him and and vice versa goes, you know, sometimes after a show, some people go up and desperately want to talk to him. And I can tell there is no interest in talking with me. In fact, they'll come up and and. And kind of vibe. Me and sometimes and he picks up on that and.
00:34:35 Joe Troop
He's just like. You know, and we'll we'll we'll talk about that later and he'll be like. Well, it's what. Is wrong with people, but the same thing happens to me. Some people feel more invited by my presence and feel like they can't communicate with him. And that there those people are missing the point it's like. Yes, it might take you more effort because culturally there is there are differences between y'all, but you know work a little bit, you know.
Intercultural communication takes. Being tolerant of your differences because there are differences. And you know it. It is what it is and it's and it's it's cool, it's not good or bad. It just is, you know, it is a thing that is a reality with which we must contend, but it's I think it's. I think something can be. Gained from it. It's like the highest expression of civilized life, like being able to tolerate differences without bloodshed or without violence. Like you don't have to love your differences. You don't. That's OK. There's no judgement, cat. That. That. That's where I think the left in the United States often gets. It way wrong. It's like, no, I will be that too. I will find. I understand. It's like, no, you don't understand fully you. Can't fully empathize.
It is very different than you, and that's also OK. You don't have to become it. You can't become something you're not. That's that's that's that's a cultural value that I've seen expressed in myself. So I speak from my own learned experience that I was wrong. I thought I could be everything -- I could be the world. And then I realized. No, I'm just a white dude from North Carolina and that is OK. That's OK too. It's not that you know what's wrong. With all the limitations that come.
He thinks it's funny when I talk about this. And getting. No. Larry's Larry's cracking a joke here. He's just saying it's like. Very sarcastic. They consider a fail. Yeah, I had to explain in an interview. So Larry, his joke is that he's he calls himself ugly. He referred to himself as ugly. He's like, well, thank God, I'm not as ugly as you. And he's saying that sarcastically because he's like he thinks he's at a disadvantage cause. He thinks he's ugly, but he's not ugly.
In Venezuela, people like to. I can't say this without cussing. What is the word? It's to take a poop on themselves. What do you call that? Self degradation as part of the humor down there? We we like to say it's it's better to laugh yourself.
00:37:59 Larry Bellorin
In the of the facility.
00:38:01 Joe Troop
In, in troubled times than to cry. If times are hard and you're llanerabitter, the results are going to be even worse.
[“Runnin’ From the Weather” by Larry & Joe, from Manos Panamericanos, continuing as bed]
This is the latest song from Larry & Joe, “Runnin’ from the Weather”, from their second album, Manos Panamericanos, available in early fall 2024. Joining Larry and Joe is Appalachian percussive dancer Sophie Wellington in a song that addresses the perils of climate change in the midst of the new gilded age we find ourselves in.
Thank you so much for being here! We are grateful that you took time to listen, and hope you can help us by spreading awareness of what we are doing. It is as easy as telling a friend and following this podcast on your platform of choice, both of which are free! From there it takes just a moment to give us a top rating, and where it is an option, a review! It makes a great difference because the more top reviews and ratings we get, the more visible we become to everyone on those platforms, which means that more people just like you connect with artists like Larry & Joe.
This series is a part of the lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available at
https://www.osirispod.com/
. You can also hear new episodes on Bluegrass Planet Radio at
https://www.bluegrassplanetradio.com/
. Thanks to everyone on staff at the Earl Scruggs Center for their hospitality, and to WNCW intern Will Prim for helping prepare me for the interview. Thanks also to Jaclyn Anthony for producing the radio adaptations of this series on public radio WNCW, where we worked with Joshua Meng who wrote and performed our theme songs. I am your host and producer Joe Kendrick, and this is Southern Songs and Stories: the music of the South and the artists who make it.
Epilogue:
00:38:17 Joe Kendrick
How do we practice rolling Rs? Because that's a. It's it's, it's hard for us.
00:38:28 Joe Troop
See. So as as a. As a as a language learner and someone like I've been speaking. Different foreign languages since I was young because I wanted to. I think it's unfortunate some people can have an easier time. It happens to be one of my very few abilities. I can imitate language and the was never hard for me. Some people struggle with it and can't do it, and the same can be said for the, you know, different sounds like is a hard is for some people can't do the.
Oh yeah, and Larry saying there are, there are Spanish speakers that cannot pronounce the.
Yeah. They they end up like doing it like happy.
And there are dialects of Spanish that don't have the roll as well. Like they say, you know, there's one in the northwest of Argentina that doesn't have the. So if there's anybody desperately wanting to speak Spanish, but you can't.
00:39:31 Joe Troop
Roll the argudo lagios. Ha. If you can do the you can do Laja. La Rioja is Laja in La Rioja. So yeah, you got a place you can go.