Bio : Steve Martin and Alison Brown

The debut collaborative album from Alison Brown and Steve Martin, Safe, Sensible and Sane is a body of work born from a shared enchantment with the singular beauty of the banjo. After scoring a No. 1 hit with the first track they ever wrote together (“Foggy Morning Breaking,” from Brown’s 2023 LP On Banjo), the two GRAMMY-winning musicians began dreaming up a batch of banjo-led songs built on Brown’s daringly inventive melodies and Martin’s idiosyncratic yet ineffably tender lyrics. As they explored the subtlest dimensions of the banjo’s tonality, the duo tapped into such eclectic inspirations as Brazilian music and Celtic folk, adding even more depth and color to the album’s exquisitely offbeat patchwork of stories. With guest appearances from luminaries like Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, Indigo Girls, and more, Safe, Sensible and Sane ultimately makes for a mesmerizing new turn in the evolution of banjo music.

“With the banjo there are so many styles you can work with, but Alison and I both have an ear for its more melodic, melancholy aspect,” says Martin. “Whenever she’d send me a tune I always loved the process of fitting my lyrics to her melodies, because those melodies were all so unusual.” “One of the things I find most interesting about this project is that it could be perceived as a songwriter record rather than a banjo record,” Brown adds. “But to me it’s so deeply rooted in the banjo, because only another banjo player would hear the nuance in the melodies. Even if it’s not always obvious, the banjo is at the core of all this music.”

Tracked live at Compass Sound Studio (the historic studio at Compass Records’ Nashville headquarters, owned and operated by Brown and her husband, bassist/producer Garry West), Safe, Sensible and Sane includes standouts like “5 Days Out, 2 Days Back” feat. Tim O’Brien—a warm and timeless track nominated for Song of the Year, Collaborative Performance of the Year, and Music Video of the Year at the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards, where Brown also picked up a nomination for Banjo Player of the Year. In shaping the album’s intricately detailed but freewheeling sound, Brown and Martin worked with over two dozen of the roots-music world’s most renowned players, including legends like mandolinist Sam Bush and fiddle player Stuart Duncan as well as virtuosic young stars like Molly Tuttle and Sierra Hull. Co-produced by Brown and West, the result is a dazzling addition to a collective discography comprised of Brown’s 12 acclaimed solo albums and Martin’s expansive catalog (including his 2009 musical debut The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo and critically lauded collaborative albums with Edie Brickell and Steep Canyon Rangers).

Both California-bred musicians who took up banjo in their formative years, Brown and Martin first discovered their musical chemistry after crossing paths on a midwinter vacation in the Caribbean. “One afternoon we ended up playing banjo together, and right away it felt so musically satisfying,” says Brown. “I’ve always loved the clawhammer style that Steve does so well and thought it sounded great with my three-finger style, so when I started working on my last record I asked him to write a tune with me.” Following the smash success of “Foggy Morning Breaking,” Martin reached out to Brown and suggested they team up for another track—a turn of events that yielded the tongue-in-cheek braggadocio of “Bluegrass Radio,” the duo’s second No. 1 hit. “Once we had two songs we thought, ‘Why not ten?’” says Martin. “We got together and played music for days, and ended up making a record where our entire banjo histories coalesce.”

Although Brown and Martin eventually lifted Safe, Sensible and Sane’s title from a lyric in “Statement Of Your Affairs” (a Caribbean-leaning number featuring Jason Mraz), the duo briefly considered calling the album The Kids Are Happy With Their New Dad—a characteristically cutting line from “New Cluck Old Hen,” featuring all-female bluegrass powerhouse Della Mae. One of two songs with Martin on lead vocals, “New Cluck Old Hen” reimagines a century-old Appalachian banjo tune, spinning a hilariously aggrieved tale of a man left in ruins by his ex-wife (“She took my dreams, she took my hope/She got my house in Roanoke/She sold my car, she got my friends/All I have for dinner is a cluck old hen”). “I’ve always played the original song on banjo and never knew the words, which turned out to be about a hen that sometimes lays eight eggs and sometimes lays ten,” says Martin. “It felt like this great old melody was wasted on some very innocuous lyrics, so I came up with that narrative and then realized it needed a female response.” To that end, “New Cluck Old Hen”’s final verse finds Della Mae’s Celia Woodsmith firing back at the protagonist, swiftly transforming the track into a wildly exuberant celebration of newfound freedom and independence.

One of the most surprising moments on Safe, Sensible and Sane, “Michael” (feat. Aoife O’Donovan with Sarah Jarosz) arrives as a bittersweet reverie adorned with the breezy rhythms of Brazilian music. “I came up with that melody and had no idea what to do with it, but Steve was intrigued by its Brazilian feel and pretty soon we knew exactly where it needed to go,” says Brown. “I love how the lyrics are a window into his cinematographic imagination, where it’s almost like a little four-minute rom-com.” Thanks in part to O’Donovan’s luminous lead vocals, “Michael” perfectly channels an aching nostalgia and the rarefied sweetness of reconnecting with a long-lost pal. “The tune that Alison sent felt like a sunny day, and it got me thinking about the idea of getting together with an old friend,” says Martin. “I started with that and then somehow pulled my whole life experience into it, and all of a sudden the main characters are eating corn dogs on a pier.”

Another song steeped in wistful reminiscence, “Dear Time” (feat. Jackson Browne with Jeff Hanna) surfaced from an idea brought in by Martin as he neared his 80th birthday. “At first I was afraid of this song because it’s highly sentimental; I worried about being corny,” he notes. Penned as a soul-baring letter to time itself, the track strikes a potent balance of playful humor and heavy-hearted sincerity—a dynamic beautifully embodied by Browne, a fellow Southern California-raised artist whose teenage escapades included sneaking into a strip-mall music venue to catch Martin’s sets. “I knew we couldn’t have a youngster singing ‘Dear Time,’ and the historical connection between me and Jackson tied a lot of threads together,” says Martin. Featuring harmony vocals from Hanna (Browne’s former bandmate during his brief stint in the first iteration of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), “Dear Time” also draws much of its emotional power from the elegant simplicity of its melody. “As banjo players we can get locked into thinking we need to play sixteenth notes all the time,” says Brown. “It was a fun challenge to come up with something that speaks with single notes, and it definitely took some work, but in the end it really strikes a chord—just this week I’ve seen several people cry to that song.”

Later, on “Girl, Have Money When You’re Old (feat. Indigo Girls),” Safe, Sensible and Sane offers up a more straightforward bit of insight inspired by Martin’s encounter with actor Paul Mescal days before his Saturday Night Live debut. “Out of the blue I leaned over and asked if he wanted any advice,” Martin recalls. “I’m sure he assumed I was going to talk about the monologue or something, but instead I just told him, ‘Have money when you’re old.’” With Amy Ray and Emily Sailers trading off lead vocals, the harmony-fueled track takes on an undeniable magnificence even as its lyrics tilt toward the absurdly specific (e.g., “Buy a fancy perfume spray/Have a special Sunday dinner/Get a brand-new office printer/Take your kids to Disneyland/Just don’t spend 100 grand”).

Interlaced with a number of spellbinding instrumentals (including a lush and sprawling track featuring Celtic folk trio McGoldrick, McCusker & Doyle), Safe, Sensible and Sane spotlights the kaleidoscopic musicality Brown partly attributes to the duo’s California upbringing. “If you grew up playing banjo in California, especially in the ’70s, there was a real sense that anything goes,” she says. “You could play an Eagles song one minute and a Flatt and Scruggs song the next, and that kind of open-mindedness becomes part of your musical DNA.” Over the course of their careers, Brown and Martin have each earned countless accolades for their contributions to banjo music: Brown, for instance, made history as the first-ever female musician to win an instrumentalist of the year prize at the IBMA Awards (where she was named Banjo Player of the Year in 1991), while Martin received the IBMA’s Entertainer of the Year award in 2011. Meanwhile, in 2010, Martin launched the Steve Martin Banjo Prize—an effort that’s now awarded more than $500,000 in funds to banjo players in any genre or style, with past recipients including Rhiannon Giddens and Jake Blount. Also a longtime co-chair for the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, Brown co-founded the groundbreaking roots-music label Compass Records with West in 1995. 

Looking back on the making of Safe, Sensible and Sane, Martin expresses a certain gratitude for the success of the album’s creation. “And I don’t mean chart success or anything like that,” he qualifies. “I mean the success of coming up with songs that we enjoy listening to, and that we’re proud to play for other people.” For Brown, that outcome is closely tied to the free-flowing nature of their musical partnership. “We didn’t start off by saying, ‘Let’s make an album,’” she says. “We were just having a good time writing songs, and at some point we realized we’d written enough to gather them all together and put a bow on it. There was a joy and ease and sense of fun to the whole process, and now hopefully that joy will transfer onto everyone who listens.”