The way Jerry Douglas sees it, he got out at just the right time. It was 1998, and the dobro wizard was playing on an endless string of Nashville recording sessions. Then Alison Krauss came a-courtin'. One of her band members had quit and she needed a summer tour replacement.
"I was getting sick of being in the studio all the time," he says, and adds with a laugh, "I needed a real tan instead of a studio tan. So I said, 'Yeah, I'd love to go out with you guys.'"
From that one-off summer trek, Douglas has become a regular member of Krauss' ensemble (albeit one who gets billing as a featured soloist). He never returned to full-time studio work, and he's glad of it. "It wasn't really a planned thing," he says. "No one knows when the different cycles are gonna come around. I came in [to the Nashville scene] right at the end of the Urban Cowboy movement [of the early '80s]. We were thankful when that died.
"Then traditional country started up again, and sort of morphed into a heavy bluegrass influence for a while. Now I think we've entered a new phase, a new low. We're about ready to ride that mechanical bull again. There are signposts along the way for these things. Big & Rich, that's a billboard, and you can quote me on that."
Fortunately, Douglas won't have to ride the bull. Now 48, he's safely ensconced in Krauss' Grammy-winning juggernaut, adding rootsy, slithery slide lines to her mainstream-friendly take on bluegrass. Meanwhile, he continues to make his own music and cherry-pick studio gigs. He cuts most of his tracks in his home studio, layering his signature dobro sound onto various projects. "We used to joke about phoning in our parts," he says with a chuckle. "I didn't know how literal it would be."
After five years on bluegrass-centric Sugar Hill Records, Douglas inked a new deal with the Koch label. With full creative control, he intends his next solo release to be "a different record. I don't really like plowin' the same ground all the time."
Douglas grew up in Warren, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border – the son of a steelworker who played bluegrass on the side. Through the '70s and '80s, he was a member of several groundbreaking bluegrass/mountain music acts: The Country Gentlemen, J.D. Crowe & the New South, Boone Creek (with Ricky Skaggs) and The Whites.
Over time, he branched into rock, jazz, blues, Celtic and some stuff that bordered on new age. At various junctures, he's led his own hard-pickin' bands, as well as touring and recording with the virtuosic likes of Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor.
Douglas was also a central player in the cultural resurgence of old-time music via his involvement in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Producer T-Bone Burnett asked him to help assemble musicians for the sessions; in addition, Douglas played on three songs, including "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow."
That song and a handful of others from O Brother remain on Krauss' set list. Douglas says he's never felt like a hired gun in her band, and has not been treated like a hotshot interloper. "They all grew up listenin' to my records and the people that I made music with," Douglas explains. "When you think about it, it's amazing that a band of their stature would just invite someone in like that, but it's been a natural fit for me. We are a real band in every way."
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2005.