Musicians Ruth Ungar and Kristin Scott Benson and sound engineer Haley Miller Coots are featured in the Blue Ridge Music Center’s final release of interviews from its online series, A Place in the Band: Women in Bluegrass & American Roots Music. The latest videos premiered on Tuesday, Jan. 26, and are part of a 10-episode series exploring the triumphs and struggles of prominent women in the music industry.
In this video series, North Carolina singer-songwriter and social justice activist Laurelyn Dossett speaks with musicians and additional music industry leaders. During these conversations, the women share behind the scenes stories, reveal their role models and mentors, discuss issues they’ve encountered specific to women in the industry, and highlight changes they’ve seen over the years. The individual stories show the collective strength and possibilities for women in bluegrass and American roots music.
All three of these women come from families with deep roots and historical connections to traditional and folk music. Kristin Scott Benson’s grandfather was part of the duo Whitey & Hogan (Roy “Whitey” Grant & Arval Hogan) and the band The Briarhoppers, who performed on WBT radio and television in Charlotte, NC in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Ruth Ungar’s mother and father, Lyn Hardy and Jay Ungar, are both folk musicians. Jay Ungar is well-known for his composition Ashokan Farewell which was featured in Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War. Haley Miller Coot’s father Cliff Miller toured and played with Doc Watson. He founded his sound and production company, SE Systems, to provide quality audio for acoustic music performances, including helping with the early Merlefests. SE Systems still handles the sound, lighting and stage production there to this day.
The new episodes cover the following women’s experiences in the music industry.
Ruth Ungar was raised in a folk musical family and learned to play the fiddle at a young age. Along with her husband Michael Merenda, she has recorded and performed original American music for more than two decades, both with the band The Mammals and as the duo Mike & Ruthy. The couple and their two children make their home in the Hudson River Valley where they and friends host a thriving community folk festival, The Hoot. The Hoot is held biannually at The Ashokan Center in the Catskill Mountains of Upstate New York, where Ruth is the Director of Arts and Education. In her interview, Ungar discusses playing and performing, heading down a musical career path, musical partners, gender parity and diversity, the business of music, and paradigm shifts.
Kristin Scott Benson is one of the nation’s top bluegrass banjo players, exhibiting impeccable taste, timing, and tone. With an attentive ear to back-up, she is known and respected as a true team player among her peers. Benson is a five-time International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year and recipient of the 2018 Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. She is one of the first females to successfully be a side-musician in a top-tiered bluegrass band, The Grascals. In her interview, Benson talks about her early days, influences and mentors, her role as a sideman, traveling with The Grascals, what’s next in her career, what it’s like to live her lifelong passion. She also offers advice for young musicians.
Haley Miller Coots is a professional audio engineer who works for SE Systems, providing sound, staging, lighting, and production services for major festivals, concert series, venues, and touring performers. Coots has toured as audio engineer for Alison Krauss and Union Station, run sound at MerleFest, The World of Bluegrass, and HoustonFest, among other festivals, and worked with the Winston-Salem and North Carolina symphonies. In her interview, Coots talks about getting started, women in the field, family life, work-life balance, and mentors. She also gives advice for people entering the field.
These three interviews join seven others in the series, with Rhiannon Giddens, Missy Raines, Amy Grossmann, Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Amythyst Kiah, and Traci Thomas, which were released earlier in January.
The episodes are available on the Blue Ridge Music Center’s YouTube channel, and links will be posted at BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org. The interviews are also be featured at TheBluegrassSituation.com. These interviews, along with an online conference on February 26, are part of a project that began 2020 to honor the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women in the United States the right to vote.
A Place in the Band: Women in Bluegrass and American Roots Music is sponsored and supported by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, the Blue Ridge Parkway/National Park Service, National Endowment for the Arts, National Park Foundation, and The Bluegrass Situation.
