Watkins Family Hour focuses on 'Brother Sister' with return to road after lockdowns

Sean and Sara Watkins released “Brother Sister,” their second album together as Watkins Family Hour, on April 10, 2020, which meant they couldn’t tour to support the record due to the lockdown of live performances.

“We were about three weeks away from hitting the road,” Sean says. “A lot of musicians and friends of ours were in the same boat. There was a minute where we were debating whether to delay the release towards fall, but we started to realize that it was going to be probably at least a year long, so we just put it out. I'm glad we did. A lot of people listened to a lot of music. People need music all the time, but, I think, especially then, people were leaning on it.”

Heading out on tour, the Watkins siblings finally get to play songs from the album, as they will on Jan. 21 at Sauder Concert Hall at Goshen College.

Watkins Family Hour began in 2002 as a monthly, informal musical variety show at the Los Angeles nightclub Largo. The monthly residency continues there today.

Guitarist Sean and fiddle player Sara are two-thirds of the Grammy-winning progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek, along with mandolin player Chris Thile, who now hosts “Live From Here,” the radio show that replaced “A Prairie Home Companion.”

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Sean says they started Watkins Family Hour as “sort of a release valve” from the heavy touring schedule of Nickel Creek.

“We were touring so hard,” he says. “It was so fun, but it was a way for us to play different songs or for us to learn songs. It was a place for us to try out covers. It enabled us to meet and play with so many people. We would meet people around town in Los Angeles. It was a thing where we could say, ‘Hey, if you want, we're playing a show next Thursday. Do you want to come down and play a couple songs?’ It was so casual.”

On any given night, Watkins Family Hour featured such guest performers as Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, Michael Penn and even actor John C. Reilly.

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Sean says that there were times where they met someone for the first time when they joined them onstage.

“One time, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings were playing with us and Flanagan, who owns Largo, just sent Brad Mehldau up to play on a song,” Sean says. “I'd never met Brad. I'm a huge fan of his. He came up and we played a song of Gillian's with Brad. It's facilitating these really mind-blowing experiences. That just kept us going. We can't get enough of meeting new people and playing new and old songs with new people in different configurations. It's just a lot of fun.”

For their self-titled album, released in 2015, Watkins Family Hour enlisted the talents of musicians who have sat in at the residency, playing a collection of covers, giving a sample of a typical show at Largo.

Sean and Sara went in a different direction with “Brother Sister.” Other than a couple of cover songs — Warren Zevon’s “Accidentally Like a Martyr” and 1930s and 1940s blues musician Charley Jordan’s “Keep It Clean” — the duo wrote all the songs, and the focus is on the two of them together without guests.

The Watkins are already at work on the next Watkins Family Hour album, which is planned for release this summer. This album will be more like the first record, with covers and a variety of guests.

“We were just working with Holly (Laessig) and Jess (Wolfe) from the band Lucius,” Sean says. “I think Jackson Browne is gonna sing harmony on a song. We're doing a song of his and he's gonna sing some background vocals. It's a very kind of Watkins Family Hour thing for us to do. We've been doing it so many years and we're so grateful to have these people in our circle that have been guesting with us, so we try things like that. Sara singing this Jackson song, ‘The Late Show,’ and he and I are doing the background vocals on it. It's really fun.”

Sean notes that Browne is a frequent participant at their monthly show.

“He's a regular guest,” he says. “If there are 12 shows in a year, he'll be there for three or four of them.”

Other songs on the forthcoming album include “The Way I Feel Inside” from The Zombies and “Grief and Praise” by Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket}.

“A lot of the songs are songs that we've done over the years at Largo, or were written by people who are kind of part of the scene,” Sean says. “We're trying to keep it that way.”

Sean also says that Nickel Creek is working on new material, but a new record won’t be out for at least a year or two. It will be the band’s first studio album since 2014’s “A Dotted Line.”

In concert

• Who: Watkins Family Hour

• When: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21

• Where: Sauder Concert Hall at Goshen College, 1700 S. Main St., Goshen

• Cost: $40-$30

• COVID protocols: Face masks must be worn at all times while indoors regardless of vaccination status, and either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test (within 48 hours of the concert) is required for entrance into the venue.

• For more information: Call 574-535-7566 or visit goshen.universitytickets.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Watkins Family Hour plays Goshen College on 1st post-lockdown tour