JD Hutchison
You and the World Outside
Release date – October 28, 2016
Born into a musical family in Belmont County, Ohio, JD Hutchison made his early mark in southern Ohio, and in the Wheeling, WV area. He and his brother, Zeke, (who played banjo), formed a fine band and traveled coast to coast on the bluegrass circuit.
As the Hutchison Brothers,they released two albums for Cincinnati-based Vetco Records, then disbanded in 1978. After that JD rambled around on his own, landing in Austin, TX, where he acted in a local theater company. He then moved back to Ohio to be with is family and settled into life as a fixture in the college town of Athens, OH. He continues to write songs and poetry, gigging both as a solo and with his band -Realbilly Jive.
As the Hutchison Brothers,they released two albums for Cincinnati-based Vetco Records, then disbanded in 1978. After that JD rambled around on his own, landing in Austin, TX, where he acted in a local theater company. He then moved back to Ohio to be with is family and settled into life as a fixture in the college town of Athens, OH. He continues to write songs and poetry, gigging both as a solo and with his band -Realbilly Jive.
“JD Hutchison is a musician’s musician. While he gave up the traveling life and music business many years ago, at 75 years of age, he retains a vital presence in his college town home of Athens, Ohio. He keeps coming up with new songs and his friends and fans keep urging him to record them. The result is this fine album,” said Tim O’Brien
“A few words about Lost John Hutchison… he’s been found a couple of times. He’s a very unique individual, and this isn’t always the best thing, but he writes beautiful songs, he’s a fantastic musician, instrumentalist, songwriter and singer. And you’ve got a treasure, he’s a national treasure,” said David Bromberg
Said Tim, “Back in 1975, after playing the Telluride Bluegrass Festival for the first time, I returned home to West Virginia. And while there I met the amazing JD Hutchison. Here was a hip, contemporary music head, and a tobacco chewing hillbilly who quoted Shakespeare. And who just happened to channel his muse through a great traditional bluegrass band. We became fast friends and I set about imitating him, working my own outside influences into what became Hot Rize.”
"JD was always much more than a great bluegrass singer and guitarist though, with his wonderful original songs and his actor's sense of drama both onstage and off. I still need a checkup with JD from time to time. A few years ago we had a wonderful few days together, and from that visit slowly evolved a plan to document his songs of the past ten years or so.”
Sessions in late April resulted in a fourteen song set of JD’s originals, backed by his loyal band Realbilly Jive, with Tim O’Brien and JD’s long time friend and supporter John Edwards producing.
O’Brien elaborates: “JD broke up the band Realbilly Jiveabout twenty years ago, saying there was no money to pay them. They were sad but almost accepted that, until a few months later they came to him and said, “You take the money, but we still want to play!” And that’s what’s happened. These days they wait a long time between shows but they still get together every Wednesday night to rehearse.”
Bluegrass fans may know the name JD Hutchison from Hot Rize recordings; he wrote three songs that the band recorded, and one of them, “My Little Darlin,” is included on the new album.
Realbilly Jive members are John Brochard and Jimmy Smailes on guitars, Dave Borowski /bass, Mimi Hart / vocal, and Geoff Goodhue/drums. Guest musicians include Jeff deLaval / piano, Bernie Nau /organ, Tim O’Brien / mandolin and fiddle, Greg Dearth / sax, and Jan Fabricius /vocal.
O’Brien continues: “Whenever we needed new songs, I’d always ask John because his songs came from the tradition, and they oozed with soul."
The project was recorded in April and May 2016 at a Peach Fork studio in Pomeroy, Ohio with Bernie Nau as an engineer, with additional recording at The Butcher Shoppe in Nashville with David Ferguson as an engineer.
Hutchison, who often describes his subject matter as “heartache, misery, agony, and pain,” is backed on his recording by Realbilly Jive, his loyal band of many years.
He paints the living picture of a honky-tonk in “Another Fools Café.” And he tells it like it is on the blues-gospel song “Don’t Talk About Love.” A duet with longtime backup singer Mimi Hart,“Oobly Doobly,” brings you right back to 1956 with the Realbillies twin guitars churning behind. His “billy boy” protagonist meets a woman of a new stripe on “Approximately Love.” And his update of a folk rhyme learned from an older brother, “Ivory Bones and Ebony Dots,” tells of gambling and fighting in back alleys, a scene JD seems to know well.
O’Brien sings two duets with Hutchison, the aforementioned “My Little Darlin’,” and the pensive “I Pity the Son and the Daughter.”
He also lent his talent playing mandolin, fiddle, and handles lead vocals on “The Song Around Your Life.” Realbilly bassist Dave Borowski sings lead on “Love at a Distance.”
JD’s old Hutchison Brothers bandmate Greg Dearth adds some nice tenor sax to the closing track “That Ain’t All of Me.” Dearth, who played fiddle in the Hutchison Brothers bluegrass band, also contributes original artwork for the album cover.
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