What does it mean when one of the hottest young bands in bluegrass music doesn’t, at times, sound like bluegrass at all? The shape-shifting AJ Lee and Blue Summit, slated to perform at Hardywood Brewery on Wednesday, Sept. 27, doesn’t even include a banjo.
“I wouldn’t say there are too many like us,” laughs Lee, the lead singer and main songwriter of the emerging Santa Cruz, California-based string band. “I don’t think I know another bluegrass band per se that doesn’t have a banjo. But we like to keep it fresh.”
On its first two albums, 2019’s “Like I Used To” and “I’ll Come Back” from 2021, Blue Summit has explored a wide spectrum of acoustic music: bluesy, Bonnie Raitt-like vamps (“Lemons and Tangerines”), indie singer-songwriter laments (“Crossing the Blue Skies”), hard country hoedowns (“Faithful”), even irreverent folk-prog instrumentals named after goofy comedians (“Rodney Dangerfield”).
The thru-lines are expert musicianship, creative arrangements, and Lee’s evocative songs and voice. “We used to get more criticism,” she says, calling from the tour bus somewhere in Minnesota. “But now that people have heard us and are familiar with our style, we don’t get much flak for not having a banjo these days.” Quite the contrary. Critics have waxed poetic about the group’s sound, focusing on Lee’s singing. “Holding her notes in a manner reminiscent of Alison Krauss (perhaps a half octave lower), Lee commands attention with her personality as well as her melodies,” raved the Grateful Web after a recent Novato, California show.
California roots
Lee started early. Her musician mom Betsy was a huge fan of older country music – Buck Owens, Merle Haggard – and also fond of rootsy vocalists like Bonnie Raitt. Lee’s first instrument was a ukulele, tuned like a mandolin. “I was so small that my mom wanted to start me on something small for my fingers. And then I just transitioned to mandolin.” Mom taught her to sing on pitch at three or four, she adds. “She started taking me to open mics. I mean, she would hold me up to the mic to sing.”
At one of those open mics, she met a director for Kids on Bluegrass, a youth program sponsored by the California Bluegrass Association. “He said, ‘You ought to bring her and put her in the program,’” Lee says. “And the rest is history.”
While the group likes to expand the form, its roots lie in the tight-knit California bluegrass community. She was mentored at an early age by Jack Tuttle, a well-known music teacher and bluegrass specialist, and invited to join the Tuttle family band when she was still in single digits. That’s where she met Sullivan “Sully” Tuttle, Blue Summit guitarist, and brother of noted newgrass singer Molly Tuttle. “We’ve been playing music together forever, we were both like seven or eight years old. Blue Summit started with other friends in the community, playing around. When the Tuttles went on hiatus, one of our buddies said, ‘this group right here, we’re a band now.’ And it eventually became Blue Summit.”
There’s been a fair amount of lineup changeover since those early days, she says. “Sully and I are the only original members left now. We have Jan Purat on the fiddle and are working with a few bass players at the moment [Hasee Ciacco fills the spot for now]. Scott Gates is our other guitar player, who I go back a long way with. He was the first person outside the family that I ever played music with – I met him when I was four or five. There’s a cute video of us performing ‘Old Rattler’ on Youtube when we were really young.”
The group has become a hot ticket in Cali, selling out shows in and around the Bay Area. But lately Blue Summit has been concentrating on national tours and festivals like RockyGrass in Lyons, Colorado, where the quartet was warmly received earlier this summer; after its Richmond gig, the Summit will head to Raleigh for the big star-studded World of Bluegrass festival. “We’ve been out of the road more than we’ve been home,” she says.
Next up is a new album, currently in the mixing phase, which Lee says will change up the Blue Summit sound even more. “Lech Wierzynski from the California Honeydrops is on it, so I’d say it will have more of an acoustic soul feel, leading toward R&B.”
Is she afraid that the bluegrass traditionalists back home will bristle at yet another change in sound. “Maybe someone else would get backlash,” she laughs. “If you are coming from outside the community, you might get a slap on the wrist for trying to come in and change things, or put in a 6th minor where there usually isn’t one. But once you get to know the people, you can do whatever you want.”
JamInc presents AJ Lee & Blue Summit at Hardywood Craft Brewery on Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. All ages. Tickets are $20 in advance. Visit jaminc.org for more info.
