One of the brightest stars in the world of bluegrass and old-time music is also one of its youngest. Already a veteran performer and recording artist with three albums and an EP to her name, Nora Brown hasn’t yet reached her 20th birthday.
Acclaimed for her work on a somewhat unusual instrument—the fretless, nylon-string banjo—Brown cultivates folk traditions, carrying them forward for current and future generations of listeners. Joined by old-time fiddler Stephanie Coleman, Brown comes to Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Jan. 7.
Brown released her debut album, Cinnamon Tree, in 2019. She was 13 years old. Today she readily concedes that at that point, she “didn’t have much of a creative idea” about what she wanted the record to sound like. “I was [just] like, ‘I’m learning these songs. I like to play them.’” So she did. Six years later, she still looks back fondly on that experience. “There were a lot of people around guiding me on the journey of recording,” she says. “They were excited to give me an opportunity.”
But six years is a long time, especially in the life of a teenager. So by the time Brown made 2023’s Lady of the Lake—an EP with Coleman—she had taken a much more active role. “There was a much more curatorial instinct that had to be awakened,” she says.
Much of Brown’s repertoire is built around the folk tradition: passing songs along from musician to musician, from one generation to another. That process keeps the songs alive; it not only preserves them but reinvents the music with each new interpretation.
Brown’s family home in Brooklyn is filled with records. “I’m often listening through that stuff,” she says, searching for ideas. But Brown is far from a copyist; when it comes to adding a song to her repertoire, she focuses on giving it her own interpretation. “I wouldn’t say I feel a responsibility to hold true to a source recording,” she emphasizes. On the contrary, she feels an internal pressure to change things.
“There are real gems—old field recordings from the ’20s, ’30s, and even more recently, up to the 1970s—that are just perfect,” she enthuses. “You’re like, ‘Wow, this musician was incredible.’” And in those cases, even though the particular song itself might be far older than the recording, that version becomes accepted as the version. “But that sort of denies the fact that the process [of interpretation] was happening even at that time,” she says. “People were altering things; that’s the folk process.”
With that in mind, when Brown scours archives of old recordings, she tries to focus on the song itself, not the recording. “A skill that I’m trying to cultivate is to see the song: just the melody, just the rhythm, just the components that make up that song.” She readily concedes that it’s impossible to do that fully, but insists that it’s worth the effort to try. Sometimes Brown will tell herself that she doesn’t even like the way that the artist on the recording has interpreted the song; that framework gives her the freedom to explore her own interpretation.
It’s often the case that once an artist gets five or six years into their recording and touring career, they grow bored with the approach that got them started. They might branch off onto a wildly divergent path: a concept album, perhaps. Or maybe a record backed by an electric band. But Brown waves away such ideas. Those sorts of questions “don’t even come to my mind,” she says. “I’m finding creative fulfillment.”
But at the same time, Brown doesn’t believe that she is traveling on any sort of set path to begin with. “I’m really still learning about what I like to do as an artist,” she says. “It’s so much of a process of learning that I’m not looking for any big [changes]. It’s more like, ‘More work needs to be done.’”
Brown’s current run of concert dates fits neatly into the winter break between her college semesters. She seems to have found the balance that suits her. Brown believes that if music is an artist’s only means of financial support, that can pose a threat. “There’s something good about a model in which you don’t have to rely [solely] on your art to make money,” she says. Finding oneself in that situation “can lead to a loss of enjoyment in the work, a kind of pressure that stifles creativity,” she suggests.
In an interview six years ago, Brown told me, “I’m not sure if I want to continue a career in music for my entire adult life.” Reminded of that quote, she shrugs. “Not much has changed, to be honest,” she says. “It’s definitely the time of life to be wondering those things. I moved away from home to go to college, and I am focused on school.”
For now, Nora Brown is in her happy place: preserving the folk tradition while engaging in collaborative artistry with Coleman. “It’s a joyful experience,” she says, “to blend your sound with someone else’s.”
Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman perform at 7pm on Jan. 7 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St, Santa Cruz. $29.14 adv/$31.50 door.
