Becky Buller is making up for lost time. In one weekend, the band played the Grand Ole Opry and a baptism by the river for bass player Daniel Harden’s church. While working on a Christmas album due out in December, she released a cover of James Taylor’s “Millworker.”
A fan of Taylor for years, she first started playing the song in 2018 when she and the band headed to Boston for a show for the Boston Bluegrass Union. “I wanted to sing a song that featured Massachusetts, and that song immediately came to mind,” said Buller.
Buller says she was drawn to the plight of the woman in the song. “She has pretty much given up hope, and she’s resigned to the fact that she’s imprisoned in this life. She made some choices, and things didn’t go the way that she felt they would,” says Buller. “It’s amazing to me how James painted this picture. It’s beautiful, yet filled with shadow. He was able to speak through the voice of this woman. When I’m singing it, I feel like she’s almost possessing me, I’m letting her take me over.”
The band loved playing the song so much, she said, they made it a part of their regular rotation of songs. Buller says she anticipates including the song on an album of covers for her next project.
“It’s the exception rather than the rule when I cover a song. Most of what we play is my original material, songs I’ve written with other people, or songs the band has written, but I’m influenced by so many different folks and so many different styles of music.”
The challenge, says Buller, is how to pare down the album to a dozen songs. She expects to release a few more singles before the full record is complete. “Millworker” was a natural first release since her road band, who plays on the single, had been playing it for a while.
Joining Buller on harmony on the record are Andrea Zonn and Dan Tyminski. Zonn, who is coming up on her twentieth year as part of James Taylor’s All-Star Band, had worked with Buller on her “Little Bird” recording in 2003, playing second fiddle and adding harmonies. Buller had also long been a fan of Tyminski’s voice and his music since his Lonesome River Band days.
Buller and the band are happy to be playing live and recording again. The day before the Covid shutdown in 2020, she and Jerry Douglas has just finished recording “Woodstock,” the last song for her Distance and Time album.
She had been preoccupied with getting everything and everyone lined up for a video shoot and concert, so when band member Nate Lee suggested they have hand sanitizer at the record table, she thought, “That’s weird, but that’s a good idea during cold and flu season; we should always do that.” She says she had not been watching the news, so the shutdown came as a shock.
Fortunately, Distance and Time, produced by Stephen Mougin at Dark Shadow Recording, was ready to be mixed, and the video footage shot at South Jackson Civic Center and edited by their sound engineer CJ Garskof, had turned out well for use promoting the album.
“I ended up losing CJ during the pandemic because he became an electrician,” she said, “which pays a lot better than I could.”
Professor Dan Boner, the guitarist for the Becky Buller Band, had already given his notice in January of 2020 and planned to play through July. With a new baby, mandolinist Nate Lee also chose to leave the band during that time and build his teaching business. After the band’s last show that March, they chose to wait about those announcements. since everyone else was off the road.
Buller admits she struggled during the shutdown, but credits her husband, friends, and family for helping her through until life got back to normal. Distance and Time, released during that time was well-received, garnering a nomination for 2021 IBMA Album of the Year.
The Becky Buller Band has added new band members, joining Ned Luberecki on banjo and Daniel Hardin on bass. 2001 MerleFest mando champ Wes Lee came out of retirement from music to play with Becky, “and no,” says Buller, “you don’t have to have the last name Lee to be in my band.”
Wes Lee and Buller had worked together in the past. She noted that since hers is “mostly a weekend warrior band,” Lee can juggle his work in the band with his day job at Springer Mountain Farms. During the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Jake Eddy sojourned with B^3 on guitar, garnering a 2022 IBMA Momentum Award nomination. He recently left the band to pursue trio work with his brother Carter and legendary mandolinist Andy Statman. Rounding out Becky’s team is their much-loved sound engineer, Aubrey Shamel.
“We like to call her Grand Ole Aubrey,” says Buller, after her phone misheard a reference to the Grand Ole Opry in voice to text.
With her band complete, shows and festivals scheduled, and a December 2nd Christmas album debut set for Nashville’s iconic Station Inn, Becky Buller’s fans can look forward to plenty of opportunities to see why she continues to make her mark on bluegrass as a vocalist, a fiddler, and a joyful entertainer.
Connect with her in person and online via her website: BeckyBuller.com.
