Del McCoury didn’t invent bluegrass. Yet, in the past decade, the 65-year-old guitarist has grown into the genre’s chief ambassador, spreading his “high lonesome sound” to a generation weaned on jamband solos and alt-country singers. Originally a banjo player, McCoury switched to guitar after joining Bill Monroe’s band in 1963, later filling a key role in the pioneer Bluegrass Boys band. Since 1967, McCoury has fronted his own traveling unit, which now includes his sons Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo). With his manager’s encouragement, McCoury also joined forces with Steve Earle in the late 1990s, backing the politically-charged guitarist on his album The Mountain. In 1999, McCoury strayed further from his bluegrass audience, joining Phish onstage at its Camp Oswego festival for a mini bluegrass set. Quickly tapping into this young, grassroots market, McCoury has since led a double life, dividing his time between traditional bluegrass festivals and jam-friendly gatherings like Bonnaroo and the Jammys. Of late, McCoury has also performed with Leftover Salmon, Yonder Mountain String Band, Donna the Buffalo, and the Hackensaw Boys, oftentimes jamming with these younger players at the tail end of his own set. Below, McCoury tells Relix how a young, high lonesome singer managed to age into an elder statesman who is, in fact, “quite happy.”

On recent tours, you’ve paired your band with younger bluegrass-inspired artists such as Leftover Salmon and Donna the Buffalo. Are you consciously trying to expand bluegrass’ audience?

Yeah. I think the main reason we do it is to get new fans. We exchange fans that way. Sometimes I find out about a new band from my manager and sometimes it’s from my boys. For the longest time, I booked my own band. But, about 12 years ago, I got a manager and a great booking agent. It does make a difference, I tell ya.

A jamband festival has a very different energy than a pure bluegrass festival. Do you tailor your setlist depending on your audience?

We do the same thing, though we always do requests, so it might not end up being the exact same set [laughs]. It’s funny, the requests we get at a strictly bluegrass festival and a jamband festival are exactly the same. It’s amazing, the jamband fans will request songs I did 30 years ago. I don’t know how they know ‘em [laughs]. I guess they bought the record. Someone in New York requested “JB Jones,” a song I recorded years ago. This guy wanted the song bad. I said, “Look, if you’re game, I am, but I don’t know if I remember it.” But I surprised myself. I had a little help with the fourth verse, but it came back to me.

How do you structure your setlist?

Well, usually, I like to do some songs from our last album. We’ll get about four of them in. And there are certain songs I do when I introduce the members of the band. But it’s requests from there on. That’s what keeps my interest up, the band’s interest up, and the fans’ interest up. We never do the same show.

Have you worked any of the material from your forthcoming album into your current set?

We’ve actually never done one of them on stage yet. It works better for me if I know a song well enough to get into the studio and cut it when everything is happening. That’s the best I’ll ever do it. I just put more into the song that first time around. Usually, I’ll have the songs on paper in front of me in case I forget and we’ll just play it live. But we haven’t done any of the new songs on stage yet. I figure we’ll wait until the album is released and then I’ll tax myself and learn ‘em [laughs].

What was as your introduction to the current crop of jambands?

Well, you know what, we’ve played Colorado so much in the last 15 years; some of the jambands came out of that Colorado scene and they were fans of mine. They’d come to our shows before they ever were in a band – Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident, and the like. But the first jamband we actually played with was Phish. The way that came about is they recorded a song I wrote and invited us to come play their festival up there in Oswego [July 17-18, 1999]. We did our own show and we also did some numbers with Phish. They were kind of set up in the middle of the stage and we were set up on the left-hand side with our two microphones. Trey asked me, “Do you know ‘Blue and Lonesome?’” It kind of shocked me. I said, “Yeah, man.” This is the hardest-core bluegrass song there is. It was written by Hank Williams and Bill Monroe in 1950. I said, “You know that song? I had to sing it every night when I worked for Bill Monroe.”

Ricky Skaggs also recorded a well-known version of that song.

When Ricky Skaggs first got his bluegrass band, he came to me and said, “Do you know the words to ‘Blue and Lonesome?’” I told them to him and didn’t realize we were going to record it [laughs]. But Trey knew that song and we sang a duet on it. I tell you, these young bands, they learned the history of this type of music.

Even as audio technology has evolved, you’ve stuck with your traditional two-microphone setup.

Yeah, we still use those two. You see, we used to use eight. When we first started playing bluegrass festivals, the sound company would be there at the festival. That’s when everyone started using eight: three vocals and five instrument mics. There were monitors on the stage and we thought this was great. But I grew to hate that system, I really did. I grew to hate monitors so bad. I never kicked one as some guys do, but I told the boys one day, “You know, the last time I enjoyed being on the stage is when I could hear my music going out over those big manes.” Otherwise, all I hear is me. They knew I was really hot. They said, “Dad, they have microphones you can get today which do the same thing.” I said “No, they don’t.” But we tried it and never went back. People say, “You just can’t get enough power out of them,” but, man, we proved ‘em different. My sound man can crank it ‘till your ears bleed with just those two microphones.

Do you find it easier or more difficult performing with family members?

It’s easier. It really is. You think alike. Not completely, but you think more alike than strangers do. We kind of have the same rhythm and same ideas about melody and things like that. It’s easier. But I tell you, my boys are exceptional. A lot of men have their family in the band because they are family, not because they are great musicians. I would hate to be in that position. But, you know, I wouldn’t be in that position. I won’t go onstage with a bad musician. I just won’t do it.

On stage, do you think of them as sons?

You know, in some ways, I think of them as sons and in some ways I don’t. When it’s time to get onstage and work, it’s time to work. So, in that respect, I don’t draw a line between them or my bass player and fiddle player. If they are doing wrong, they are going to get it.

Your sound has been described as “high lonesome.” But, surrounded by family, you seem anything but lonesome.

It’s the craziest thing. I’m actually happy, I’m not lonesome. I think most of the high lonesome singers over the years have actually been happy because they are doing what they want to do. It’s a happier sound than Bill Monroe and some of the others. But, you know, I cut my teeth on that and my mom sang like those old mountain singers. I heard that from a time when I was just a little kid. When I went to work for Bill Monroe, I could sing with him and play with him, that’s all you had to do. I wouldn’t know how to do anything else. It’s the way you approach your notes.

Originally you where a banjo player. Why did you switch to rhythm guitar?

I learned to play guitar when I was nine. My oldest brother taught me how to play because he needed someone to play along with him. So he taught me the cords, but when I was 11, I heard Earle Scruggs play and I said, “Man, this is what I want to do.” I mean, this guy is no Frank Sinatra, but he can cut it. I wanted to learn to play the banjo and I did that for ten years. I played banjo with all types of bands. I was also the tenor singer, the baritone singer, and even the lead singer. Whatever they needed, I knew the part. But in most of the bands I was in, the weakest part was the rhythm guitar player. I went to get a job playing banjo with Bill Monroe and he said, “If you can make the grade you’ll like this job better.” I said, “No, I don’t think so.” But he proved me wrong. I loved it because it was a challenge. I hadn’t played since I was nine or ten, but I knew the basic thing. I knew time, I knew rhythm, and how to stay on top of the beat… and that’s what you had to know to play with Bill Monroe. He played right smack on top and I knew that.

When your kids were young, what type of music did they listen to around the house?

They listened to everything. I heard music in the house that I didn’t know what it was. Mostly they listened to southern rock and I can hear some of that in Rob’s playing. I can hear bluesy guitar. Ya know, young people, when they start playing music, they want to play like other young people. I thought, “That’s what will happen with my sons.” I said, “If you want to play banjo, a good guy to listen to is Earl Scruggs because he perfected that three-finger roll.”

During your recent outing with Donna the Buffalo, you played first for two nights and closed the third. What led to this sudden lineup switch?

My son Rob advances our shows. He talked to the promoter, who said, “You know, Donna the Buffalo is loud, so maybe you should go on first – then they can get as loud as they want to after.” We did it again the next night, but the third night, in Philadelphia, we went on last. They went on first and then a fiddle player went on and brought it back down, and then we came back on. But, then we brought Donna the Buffalo back and jammed a little bit. I know they got into it a bit in New York with the promoter. That’s the good thing about managers. You can let them do all the arguing.

Do you think traditional bluegrass’ formality has been lost on a younger generation of players?

When I was a teenager, you dressed up on stage. Even the rock and rollers of the day, Elvis and the Blue Suede Shoe guy [Carl Perkins], they dressed up. But sometime in the ‘60s we started seeing the longhairs, the hippies and the beatniks and we saw them on stage with jeans and the knees and all that. But it’s kind of a tradition for us to dress up. I always figured, if someone is paying to see you, you don’t want to look worse than they do. A lot of it is what you hear onstage and a lot of it is what you see. And you don’t want to see a bum onstage [laughs]. I don’t know why the young people do that. I guess a lot of the bands you see copy whoever they saw before.

It must have been an interesting clash of styles to play with Steve Earle onstage. He is not known for his fashion sense.

Well, do you know what Steve did? When we went on tour, he was the only musician on stage besides us and he got some expensive suits and shirts. But as soon as the tour was over, he went right back to what he was wearing before. He looked sharp. I was like, You’re making us look bad up here.

Your last album had more of a modern, computer-enhanced feel. Will your new album follow this modern feel?

This one puts my voice right up in your face. You can almost hear me breathing and I like that. It really cuts through and it’s a different sound. A lot of the time it’s the songs they choose – it seems the songs that came to me on this record have a more traditional sound. So it’s more of a traditional record than the one that came before.