Ellie Hakanson: Improvising at Life and on the Fiddle

Despite starting on the violin at an early age, having a bluegrass-loving father, playing in a family bluegrass band, and then touring with a national act, Ellie Hakanson didn’t set out to be a full-time musician. 

But things happen. Such as layoffs, lockdowns, and the chance to spend cherished time with a music-loving grandmother, who remains an inspiration.  

“I wasn't really planning on the professional bluegrass thing. But I'm happy it worked out that way,” Hakanson says.

The acclaimed fiddler for Missy Raines and Allegheny has moved from her native Portland, Oregon, to Nashville, where she’s busy teaching and touring. 

There might be some Swedish fiddlers in her family tree, but it wasn’t the strong Scandinavian fiddle tradition that captivated Hakanson.

“My grandpa's dad might have been a little bit of a fiddler, but it wasn't really something that got passed down actively. And when my grandma started playing, she wanted to play American fiddle music. She had taken a few lessons as a child and didn't really click with it. And then she started playing again when she was about 47.”

Ellie started the Suzuki violin method at the age of six. With a fiddling grandmother and a father who loved bluegrass, Hakanson began playing the music, too.  Soon the Hakanson Family Band was on the road, playing festivals in the Northwest. Still, she didn’t see a life in music. After the family band, Hakanson attended Arizona State where she studied sustainable materials and technology.

“I worked for a couple years at an environmental company in Portland. And then I got laid off right around the time that I had just started playing with Jeff Scroggins and Colorado. And they had a big Europe tour planned and then just a bunch more touring. And I went with them and then I did that for five or six years.”

Mandolinist Tristan Scroggins, Jeff’s son, was also in the band. Through all the touring, Hakanson and Tristan became close friends and now play together with Missy Raines. Tristan also encouraged Hakanson to move to Nashville.

“We kind of grew up together,” she says of the time they shared on the road. “We helped each other figure out how to be better adult humans, which is true in a lot of my close friendships. The people who stick around are the people who can grow with you, usually. It was really fun to play with him again in Missy's band.”

In 2019 Jeff Scroggins and Colorado released Over the Line, a well-received album that featured Hakanson’s tasteful fiddling and strong singing. But the band decided to take a break from touring due to family health issues and the emergence of COVID. The lockdown reunited Hakanson with her ailing grandmother. 

“I just moved into her house and lived with her for several months. We did weekly livestreams where we would play music together. It started mostly as a way to keep the family updated and able to see her every week, but also people started watching and would comment, like, ‘We're watching from Ireland. It's good to see you!’ It was really fun, and I got to spend the last few months of her life playing a lot of music with her and spending a lot of time with her, and it was a very important time to me, because she’s the reason that I play the fiddle in the first place, probably.

“She really loved the old songs and old fiddle tunes, and I definitely have some of that same sense of nostalgia and history. I want to listen to source recordings and learn from those to some extent. But I think the main thing is that she really loved listening to music. She loved learning about new things, and she really loved playing music with the people that she loved, and that's something that's become a huge part of my life and my social circles and my choices that I make.” 

Though it took some coaxing from Tristan to make the move to Nashville, Hakanson quickly got the gig with Raines. Recently she’s worked with Shelby Means, Kristy Cox, and Vicki Vaughn, among others. She cites several influences in her inventive and energetic fiddling.

“I learned everything off the album Kenny Baker plays Bill Monroe. And as a kid I learned a bunch of solos note-for-note that Stuart Duncan played with the Nashville Bluegrass Band. I just really loved the way that he played. And I think that influence is still there. I love the melody lines that Kenny Baker chooses. It's like the cleanest, purest form of a tune that you can play a lot of the time. And I took lessons from a fiddler named John Melnichuk in Vancouver, and he's been a huge influence on the drive in my playing.”

Busy traveling, teaching, and performing, Hakanson seems to be up for anything. For her, the life lessons along the way may be just as important as the music lessons.

“You can make all the plans in the world and then you get laid off or you get sick or you find a new passion, and everything is going to change. I think it's good to try and plan ahead and be prudent and set goals and all of that, but, ultimately, it's also important sometimes to just be able to kind of go with the opportunities as they come.”

https://elliehakansonmusic.com/