Ronnie Simpkins’s love for the acoustic bass began before he was tall enough to hold it upright. Growing up in Southwest Virginia, his musical family included a banjoist (his father), guitarist and singer (mother), mandolinist (sister), and fiddler (brother). But they needed a bassist to be a band.
“It’s hard to beat the natural sound of that instrument,” Simpkins said. “I started out on the electric bass. It sounds crazy, but I would stand it up like it was acoustic and play it up on a stool or something until I was big enough to handle the standup bass.”
Once he was, Simpkins played in fiddlers’ conventions and local bands. He performed with his first professional band, the Bluegrass Cardinals, in 1980, and then alongside his brother Rickie in the Tony Rice Unit. When the legendary progressive bluegrass band the Seldom Scene was looking for a new bassist, Simpkins got the gig.
I spoke with Simpkins in January about his career with the Seldom Scene and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, where he has spent his weekdays as the label’s audio recording specialist. These roles are complementary—one sharpens his ear and lends essential skills to the other. “Each room, hall, theater, or festival that we play is different acoustically,” he explained. “You strive to get the best sound out of your instrument, and I think my day job has helped train my ears for that.”
Established in 1971, the Seldom Scene released their latest studio album, Remains to Be Scene, with Folkways in March. For Simpkins, it’s the crowning point of nearly thirty years of work with both groups. The band will host their album release party on April 13 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia.
On this album, the Scene covers songs by Folkways legends Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, as well as many other rock, country, and bluegrass artists. The album opens with “Last of the Steam-Powered Trains,” reimagining the Kinks’ 1968 track. The Scene’s version of Dylan’s “Farewell, Angelina” features singer and guitarist Dudley Connell, who retired from the band at the end of last year. The other Dylan cover, “Walking Down the Line,” includes the Scene’s distinctive close harmonies and fast-paced fingerpicking.
In 1996, a year after he joined the band, Simpkins began working part-time in the mail order department at Folkways, where Connell also worked.
“Back then, the CD thing hadn’t really started yet, so our main sales were cassettes,” he said. “We would package up the cassettes in plastic boxes, the liner notes were xeroxed, and they were sent in the box along with the cassette.” He also learned how to duplicate audio onto cassettes.
Simpkins worked in the Folkways mailroom for about a year. Then, just as CDs were becoming popular, engineers Pete Reiniger and Mike Monseur trained Simpkins as an audio specialist. “We were scrambling to take all of the recordings and analog tapes and to transfer those digitally,” he said.
The process for digitizing each tape varies. Broken cassettes are often repaired with splices, a kind of adhesive tape, which deteriorates over time. Simpkins recalls cleaning and replacing splices before the tapes could be digitized.
His job continued to evolve over the years, and he witnessed the vinyl resurgence of the last decade firsthand. In recent years, Folkways has begun pressing LPs for the first time in decades—including Remains to Be Scene. “I’m excited about that,” Simpkins said. “That’s a format that’s popular now with folks who are into sound quality and having the actual, physical product to hold and to read. That’s one thing I missed. With the downloads, you don’t have that. You can’t flip through, look at pictures, see who the engineer was, that kind of thing.
“Part of it’s been lost, I think, in the digital age,” he added. “It’s more convenient, but that comes at a price.”
The band’s latest project is a nod to its fifty-four-year history. The album art, designed by the Grass Spot, pays tribute to the first venue the Scene ever played: the Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland. Fans flipping through its liner notes will read words by Ben Eldridge, the group’s founding banjoist who passed away in April 2024. The band was born in Eldridge’s basement in Bethesda in 1971. Back then, the members joked that rehearsals were their “weekly card games,” Simpkins said.
“We’re just so honored to have his words be part of this recording,” Simpkins added. “This record is dedicated to Ben.”
Simpkins looks forward to holding the album that has meant so much to him. Recording his own music with Folkways is special. “I don’t want to sound corny,” he said, “but I get this fuzzy feeling. It’s like your child.”
Capping off an eventful month and a long career, Simpkins retired from Folkways at the end of March. When he reflects on a lifetime of music performance and production, he has that same warm feeling. It was through music that he met his wife, with whom he has two children, two grandchildren, and a third grandchild on the way.
“A lot of good came out of music,” he said. “That’s one of the blessings—the people you meet. Without music, I’d never have that.”
Ella Ryan is a writing intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a senior at William & Mary, studying history and creative writing.
