LOST VOICES 2/3/23

with Tim Stafford

After calling both Tim Stafford and Thomm Jutz “master guitarists and writers,” the beloved, late music writer and historian Peter Cooper described their upcoming collection, Lost Voices, just like this: “These are new kinds of bluegrass songs, informed by mutual heroes Tony Rice, Norman Blake, John Hartford, and Gordon Lightfoot, yet not beholden to any prior influence, other than the influence of the American experience.”

When it came time to lay down all fourteen Stafford- and Jutz-penned songs on Lost Voices, the pair decamped to Jutz’s log cabin studio outside of Nashville with a crew of like-minded greats including Shaun Richardson on mandolin, Ron Block on banjo, Tammy Rogers on fiddle, Mark Fain on bass, and Dale Ann Bradley as a guest vocalist. When all was said and done, Stafford and Jutz ended up with an album of all original music that perfectly reflects the depth of both knowledge and skill—and an effortless cool—that the duo possesses; an album of tunes that the aforementioned Cooper called “Songs that bring American history—mountain culture, steam trains, vaudeville, race, baseball, strife, and grace—to technicolor life.”

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Surely Will Be Singing

January 2022

As songwriters, musicians, and friends, Thomm Jutz and Tammy Rogers explore the Appalachian sounds that inspire them on Surely Will Be Singing, their first-ever album together. Recorded in their home studios in Nashville, these 12 original songs echo the acoustic production, lyricism and vocal blend of their folk and bluegrass heroes while naturally setting a foundation for more music to come. “We’d always talked about making a duo record,” Jutz says. “We started on some demos and when the pandemic hit, we were writing on Zoom. We both said the last thing we wanted was to say when this thing is over that we wasted a year sitting on the couch and watching TV, so let’s stay with it. And that’s what we did.”

Buy it here
“Rogers and Jutz are a match made in musical heaven. On Surely Will Be Singing, the duo’s sterling harmonies float over the warm intonation of Rogers’ dashing fiddle and Jutz’s crisp guitar licks, producing a sound that echoes with the front-porch, feel-good notes of old-time music and delivering reflective, tender ballads about life and love.” - Henry Carrigan

— No Depression

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To Live In two Worlds Volume 2

September, 2020

Like its predecessor, To Live In Two Worlds Volume 2 is filled with stories of mysterious deaths, moral dilemmas, struggling musicians and historical events that range through the years and across the globe, offered alternately with the help of a crackerjack string band and by nothing more than Jutz’s guitar and voice.

“As always with my writing, you’ll find characters from days gone by in this collection of songs,” says Jutz,. “Real or imagined, they struggle with their place in the world — like we all do. My beliefs, frustrations and hopes live in these characters, in the spiritual overtones and worldly undercurrents of their human existence. From the writing desk to the recording studio it’s been a genuine joy to work on this album.”

With songs ranging through the early days of country music to modern day historical events like Nashville’s historic flood and the fire that raged through Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral, Jutz weaves a rich historical timeline with memorable melodic strains and vivid turns of phrase. People long-forgotten live again, favorite characters from modern classics make their appearances, and stories never told before come clothed in the sounds of days gone by. 

BUy To Live In Two Worlds Volume 2
“Jutz is, as always, astute and accomplished, and it’s clear that his soul and spirit are firmly embedded in these songs and the stories they tell. It’s all about the authenticity, and Jutz makes it clear that even in the duality of Two Worlds, that never allows for a double standard.” - Lee Zimmerman

— Bluegrass Today

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To Live In Two Worlds Volume 1

March 2020

Nominated for The Recording Academy Grammy Award for "Bluegrass Album Of the Year"

Among these releases we find the stories of rambling vagabond musicians, the hard life of mill workers, tragic Civil War characters both real and imagined, semi-forgotten regional legends and new stories of more recent real-life dramas and tragedies that will be tomorrow’s parables. Each single release is a pairing of works — one featuring a crackerjack bluegrass band, the other featuring just Jutz and his guitar — that may complement, expand upon or contextualize one another.

Buy To Live In two Worlds Volume 1