By: Rick Landers
Cindy Cashdollar – Photo credit: Dale Haussaner
A legendary wizard on resonator and steel guitars, Cindy Cashdollar, has earned her place amongst the few masters of her country western niche, although she’s defied the notion that she’s corralled in any niche at all.
On her latest album, Waltz for Abilene, she ropes in a cornucopia of styles that range from the opening track, “Foggy Mt. Rock” with guest, Albert Lee and Cindy, clipping along in driving Western swing style to the Appalachian roots sound of “That Ain’t No Way for Me to Get Along” with Rory Block, and other tracks blended with jazz, R&B, soulful country, country western, and an exquisite final track titled, “Waltz for Abilene”.
Not to be missed is “This Train”, a traditional-roots song re-arranged by Cindy and spit shined by some cool harp playing by, none other than, John Sebastian.
Cindy reached back in time to the 1848 song of Stephen Foster, “Oh! Susanna”, for a beautiful instrumental rendition. And the artists she’s collaborated with are top notch, and include: Albert Lee, Amy Helm, Ray Benson, Jake Langley, Sonny Landreth, Marcia Ball, Arlen Roth and many more.
Waltz for Abilene is a compilation of songs for everyone, and one shouldn’t be surprised to find several of them discovered by film makers for sonic landscapes, to add emotional heft for future movies or other cinematic media.
Although, she grew up in Woodstock, New York, she moved to Austin, Texas, then stuck around for over two decades, before returning to Woodstock. On the road with Asleep at the Wheel, Cindy earned five Grammy awards, and a name for herself as a masterful and gifted steel guitar artist.
She’s shared the stage or collaborated with the likes of Levon Helm, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Redd Volkaert, Carla Olson, Ryan Adams, Leon Redbone, Elana James, and toured with Van Morrison, working with him to promote his Pay the Devil album.
In 2003, Cindy was recognized as Instrumentalist of the Year (Western swing) by the Academy of Western swing Artists, and in 2011-12 was inducted into The Austin Chronicle Hall of Fame. In 2014, she won the prized Mooney Award at the Ameripolitan Music Awards and in 2016 was nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year by the Americana Music Honors & Awards.
Her new Waltz for Abilene gets the highest rating here at Guitar International magazine for its depth, it’s style and the talents displayed by some of the top artists of our day. We’ve placed the album cover and a link at the bottom of our interview with Cindy, and urge you to check it out and add it to your compilations of fine music.
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Rick Landers: I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what brand of guitar your playing on the 1966 Woodstock photo on the inside cover of your Waltz for Abilene album? The headstock threw me and my best guess was an Epiphone. Was that your first guitar and how did you come about owning it? Still have it?
Cindy Cashdollar: My first guitar was a Kay, my parents bought it for me when I eleven. Needless to say, it was challenged in the ease of playability department. There was a family run business up the road that supplied the local high schools with brass and wind instruments, so I think they ordered what they knew or what they could get for me, as far as guitars.
That Kay got upgraded to a Favilla a year later, not the classical model, a dreadnought mahogany F5 model. I don’t know where it ended up, but I sold it locally.
Rick: What prompted you to transition or to add steel to your fingerpicking skills?
Cindy Cashdollar – Photo credit: Sergio Kerhajec
Cindy Cashdollar: The steel guitar came much later for me, I actually transitioned from guitar to Dobro.
Backing up a little bit, early on I attempted, although not very well, open tunings and bottleneck style on my guitar, John Fahey’s Of Rivers & Religion album was an early inspiration. I think it was the only album he played a bit of slide guitar on.
For finger picking and country blues, I loved Stephan Grossman and Rory Block. Some years later, maybe at 20 years old, I saw someone play the Dobro in a local club and fell in love with the sound.
Growing up in Woodstock, and I suppose anywhere around that time in general, it seemed like everyone was playing guitar. The Dobro sounded so unique to me, kind of stopped me in my tracks, an epiphany of “Yes, that’s what I want to do!”
I eventually stopped playing guitar and concentrated on learning how to play Dobro. Adding the lap steel and then steel guitar in the years to follow seemed like natural sonic and stylistic transitions. I also enjoyed the variety of playing a mix of both acoustic and electric instruments, between the various resonator guitars and the steels.
Rick: Were you heavily influenced by Hawaiian steel players or are you now, and are there others that still captivate you that were recorded in the early part of the last century by Jimmie Rogers, Fats Waller, Bing Crosby and others?
Cindy Cashdollar: I wasn’t heavily influenced by the Hawaiian steel guitar style, although I absolutely love it, it’s luscious and beautiful.
My introduction to the steel guitar was mostly from listening to country music, but when I was hired to play steel for the western swing group Asleep At The Wheel, I went deep into learning that style of music. Western swing embraces a melting pot of styles, country, jazz, blues, it all weaves together in there.
Some of the early swing steel players I love and were influenced by are Joaquim Murphy, Vance Terry, Speedy West, and Herb Remington. Herb also played the Hawaiian style beautifully, he had a little Hawaiian band many years later, after leaving Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys.
Rick: I recall seeing Danny Gatton playing his Telecaster with a Heinekin bottle, years ago at the old Birchmere in Virginia. Did you ever get a chance to perform with him or see him slide his bottle of beer up and down the board?
Cindy Cashdollar: I never got to meet Danny Gatton or see him play, and I’m sad about that, such a genius artist.
I would’ve loved to have seen him perform. I missed his infamous slide guitar with a Heineken bottle, but I did see Rusty Young pick up his chair and play his steel with it during a Poco show!
Rick: When noodling around at home, do you have a favorite non-electric you grab and what is it about it that attracts you?
Cindy Cashdollar: When I’m noodling around at home, there’s usually a mood that goes along with it, so that’ll dictate what non-electric I grab.
If it’s an open D kind of mood, it’ll be the baritone Weissenborn that Larry Pogreba [Pogreba Guitars] made, it’s very deep and resonant.
For anything else it’s my “Belle Odyssey” resonator [Beard Guitars] in open G tuning. It’s got an extra resonator cone in it, beautiful tone and sustain. They’re both inspiring instruments.
Cindy Cashdollar – Photo credit: Chuck Holly
Rick: You’ve performed with a lot of different brands of steels, Fender, Remington, Lap King and others, but do you find that sometimes a particular one sounds better on a song than others? The steel and song just fit together nearly intuitively or they somehow resonate with you?
Cindy Cashdollar: Me talking about choosing instruments for songs could be a whole separate interview. There’s so many factors that lead to deciding, sometimes it’s the style of the music.
If it’s swing or country, it’s probably the steel guitar, but I also love the steel for horn lines, or if big fat lush chordal pads are needed, or maybe something that’s just atmospheric and ethereal, nothing to do with any of the above at all.
Going for a lesser amount of strings brings me to the lap steel and that can fit just about anything, especially if it has good tone variety in the pickups to switch around for rock, blues, whatever.
My go-to now is one that my husband Harvey Citron [Citron Guitars] made. If I’m going for an acoustic sound, I know that the metal body Tricone resonators are usually good for, but certainly not limited to, the blues spectrum. With the wood body ones it’ll depend on which tuning and tone work best.
I also take into consideration the instrumentation of the other players, and if there is a vocalist, the singer’s voice. In summary, it usually comes down to the philosophy of whatever serves the song best.
Rick: I’d hazard a guess that along the way, you became familiar with the ways of recording and mixing. Are you hands-on with the mixing board or do you collaborate from the perspective that you know when something sounds right or conveys what you want to emotionally convey?
Cindy Cashdollar: I wish I was technically gifted enough to be hands-on with a mixing board! It’s odd, I play all these different instruments, use a large pedal board and different amplifiers, yet am completely baffled by the technology of recording.
That said, yes I do collaborate with the engineer and can usually convey what I’m thinking and want to or don’t want to hear. I’ve tried to learn enough to know how to communicate in both the recording and mixing process.
Rick: Tell us about the engineers and/or mixers that you worked with on Waltz for Abilene, and what did they bring to the album, that was special or maybe something you didn’t expect?
Cindy Cashdollar: The nicest thing the engineers brought to this project was friendship, because as a side musician, I had worked with all of them throughout the years, backing up all kinds of artists, we all knew each other pretty well.
David Cook of Area 52 studios did the bulk of this album, and he said to me one day “You have all these guest artists on here, why don’t you do something solo?” That was such an unexpected thought, it had never crossed my mind, but he knew me well enough to know how to talk me into doing it, hence the “Oh, Susannah” track.
Rick: I find the album, Waltz for Abilene, an eclectic landscape of very tasteful music with the last track on par with Niel Gow‘s “Lament for His Second Wife”, if you’re familiar. Of all the songs, did you choose the album title because it’s your favorite track?
Cindy Cashdollar: Thank you for the nice comparison to such a beautiful song. I chose the track “Waltz For Abilene” as the album title for two reasons: one, I wanted it to be a song that I wrote, and two, “Salvation”, the other original track on the album, didn’t work for me as well in that regard.
I think it would’ve made it sound as though it was a gospel album and there’s nothing at all wrong with that, it’s just not what I wanted to convey.
Rick: Did you start out the album with some concept in mind, or particular performers you wanted to work with again, and how did you select the songs and set aside others?
Cindy Cashdollar: I didn’t have any concept in mind, but I knew that I wanted it to be with friends that I had played with a lot.
Musical conversations amongst friends, I love it when that happens, you can musically finish each other’s sentences in a way.
Some of the songs I had worked out for my own enjoyment at home. Two examples of those were “Foggy Mt. Rock” and “Memphis Blues”, and when I was touring with Albert Lee, those popped into my head as being perfect for him to play on.
A few of the tunes I had already been performing with some of the artists, like “Salvation” with Marcia Ball, and “Sey Seychelles” with Sonny Landreth, when we were guests on BeauSoleile’s 25th anniversary tour. Exactly 13 songs came up for this album, so there actually weren’t any that got set aside.
Rick: As complete as the album sounds, I get the impression that you could easily get pumped to do a Volume II, or are you moving on to something else?
Cindy Cashdollar: I hadn’t thought about doing a Volume II, but with this pandemic happening, I won’t be on the road, so maybe plenty of time to think about it!
Rick: You’re well known as a steel player, but on this “Waltz for Abilene” album, you play a Baritone Tricone and a Baritone Weissenborn. What did they bring to the songs, that a standard steel guitar wouldn’t, or couldn’t?
Cindy Cashdollar: I think those instruments brought the right sound and mood to the songs they’re paired with.
I’ll use the track with Rory Block, “That Ain’t No Way For Me To Get Along”, as one example. She’s playing acoustic guitar, fingerpicking, playing bottleneck style slide and singing a very old blues tune.
The metal body Baritone Tricone, funky and resonant, open D tuning, also created a nice deep counterpart to her guitar and vocal. I couldn’t imagine playing the steel guitar on that song, because aside from it being electric, the tunings and how one would have to play it just wouldn’t go.
It’d be like dumping oregano on top of an apple pie, nothing in common!
Rick: We lost the legendary Levon Helm eight years ago, but I was pleased to see Amy Helm on board on Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells”. Have you known her your entire life and how did it come about that she supported you on this album?
Cindy Cashdollar: I met Amy Helm in 1991. Levon gifted her a recording session for her 21st birthday and I was one of the people on the session, along with Rick Danko, Jimmy Weider, and a few other folks here in Woodstock.
It was filmed for personal use, but I just saw the footage of it last year. There’s a really sweet scene in it where Levon’s teaching everyone the background vocals to sing behind Amy. She was a great singer then and that was her first time in the studio.
I’ve toured with Amy in recent years and we’ve played many shows together here in Woodstock. She reminds me so much of her dad, her soul and conviction when she sings and plays.
Rick: I wasn’t surprised to see Albert Lee, Rory Block, Sonny Landreth, Arlen Roth or Marcia Ball on the album, but was pleasantly surprised to see John Sebastian on harp on “This Train”. Besides being amazingly talented, I’m betting he’s like hanging out with a virtual history book of music, with a nod and a wink spin. Did you record together or virtually for his work?
Cindy Cashdollar: John Sebastian is THE best storyteller, and you’re spot on in saying “a virtual history book”. He’s a great person, an old friend, and a next door neighbor, all the good stuff.
I had recorded the track, “This Train”, right before I moved from Austin, Texas, back to here in Woodstock, New York. I had left space for a wailing harmonica solo and he was the man for the job, so we went to the studio here and I watched him nail it in two takes.
I know he’s usually associated with The Lovin’ Spoonful, so some people have been surprised to discover that he’s a badass harp player.
Cindy Cashdollar – Photo credit: Rob Buck
Rick: I’ve listened to Waltz to Abilene about ten times now and each time I hear it, it gets better. I can only imagine that each of the songs holds a certain magic for you and that this was a thoughtful, unhurried project. Do you find that not only the journey of this album was joyful, but also its destination?
Cindy Cashdollar: This album was a long journey in many ways.
It took time to connect all the dots, having to coordinate everyone in between their tours and mine, travel and logistics, so it couldn’t be hurried and didn’t really have to be. I was glad for that, and happy with its destination.
I’m sad I can’t be touring and promoting it, but folks can read about it and hear sample tracks at www.cindycashdollar.com It’s available for streaming, downloading, and in physical CD form on all available musical platforms.
