Bluegrass/Old-timey
On Headed for the Hill, Jim Lauderdale fulfills a personal goal: to record an entire album of songs with one of his heroes, Robert Hunter. Working with others has become an integral aspect of Lauderdale's record-making in recent years. For example, his previous album, 2003's Wait Until Spring, found the North Carolina native working with the wide-open grooves of the roots/jam band Donna the Buffalo. Lauderdale drew acclaim for his pair of bluegrass albums with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, the first of which (Feel Like Singing Today) was nominated for a Grammy. Besides his 2002 Grammy for Bluegrass Album of the Year for the second Stanley collaboration, Lost in the Lonesome Pines, Lauderdale was given the Americana Music Association's first Entertainer of the Year award in the same year. In addition, he won the Americana Music Association's Song of the Year with the Lauderdale/Stanley collaboration "She's Looking at Me." After his '90s success as one of Nashville's most recorded and successful songwriters—with hits by George Strait, The Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless and Mark Chesnutt—Lauderdale has broadened his audience and finally begun receiving more attention.
We rarely come across genuine buskers in America—street musicians playing their hearts out in public—let alone tightly meshed ensembles with keening vocal harmonies, fiddles and banjos. But Old Crow Medicine Show (O.C.M.S.), doing things the old-fashioned way, took their stirring and reassuring music to people where they lived, made friends, opened ears, moved feet and drilled passageways through time. Today, with a wider musical range than their Appalachian stringband origins, O.C.M.S. play more concert halls, festival stages and rock venues than street corners. After joining forces in New York, these five young men crossed Canada by van, playing for food and shelter, subsequently settling in North Carolina for a year. While playing in front of a pharmacy in Boone, N.C., a woman asked if they'd be there a while; she wanted to fetch her father to hear them. Dad turned out to be folk icon and flatpicking pioneer Doc Watson, who invited the band to play MerleFest, his four-day congress of acoustic and roots music. MerleFest led to opening for Dolly Parton and the Del McCoury Band at the Grand Ole Opry House, an invitation to join Marty Stuart and Merle Haggard on a U.S. tour, massive jam fest Bonnaroo and public radio's A Prairie Home Companion. Soon, Old Crow signed with Nettwerk America, home to The Be Good Tanyas and Neil Finn. Their self-titled album is an unbridled spirit, played live and loud across the nation, in a voice entirely their own.
The Sidemen, a group of prominent Nashville artists and session players, initially formed in 1989. At the time, all of the band's founding members were supporting the top names in bluegrass or country music—hence the name The Sidemen. They formed as an outlet for the members to exercise their own creativity and to just have fun. The Sidemen have played the Station Inn every Tuesday night since 1989 and will celebrate their 15th anniversary in August. Every current member of The Sidemen has recorded with today's biggest country and bluegrass stars, including The Osborne Brothers, Dolly Parton, Ralph Stanley, George Jones, Del McCoury, Steve Earle, Mac Wiseman, Bill Monroe and many more. All have played on Grammy-nominated or Grammy-winning albums. Each has played the stage of the Grand Ole Opry at one time or another. One of Nashville's longest-standing musical traditions, The Sidemen are known across the country for their frolicking live performances. On any given Tuesday, a host of celebrities, anyone from Vince Gill to Mel Gibson, can be spotted at The Station Inn kicking up their heels to the jostling, down-home sound of The Sidemen.
The Time Jumpers are a Western swing band comprised of nine of Nashville's finest studio and musicians and vocalists. The band started in 1998 with an idea from bandleader Hoot Hester to get together and play Western swing for their own enjoyment. Things started in a garage and soon moved to some of the most prestigious stages in Nashville. The first gig as The Time Jumpers included Hoot Hester, Dennis Crouch, Kenny Malone, Robert Bowlin, Aubrey Haynie, Johnny Cox and Andy Reiss. This version of the band played about once a month for three or four months until landing a regular gig at the Station Inn. The guys would also play jam sessions in the dressing rooms of the Grand Ole Opry when they would be there working with other artists. At the present time, the band consists of Hoot Hester (fiddle/vocals), Dennis Crouch (bass), Johnny Cox (steel guitar), Andy Reiss (guitar), Rick Vanaugh (drums), Jeff Taylor (accordion/vocals), Kenny Sears (fiddle/vocals), Carolyn Martin (vocals) and "Ranger Doug" Green (guitar/vocals). The Time Jumpers have recently completed their second album, The Time Jumpers at The Station Inn. You can still hear them there every Monday night.
Adrienne Young believes that, in the past, music was more of a communal activity than it is today. "Ideally, music is something you play with people, not just for them," she says. Young and her band, Little Sadie, trust that by sharing what moves them, people who attend their performances will walk away feeling that they were part of a creative exchange. To that end, Young has carefully pieced together an ensemble who share her philosophy and dedication to making original, contemporary acoustic music firmly rooted in the past. Adrienne Young & Little Sadie's first album, Plow to the End of the Row, represents all the values the band consider vital and important. The response suggests others welcome and share their vision. "Adrienne Young has a creative knack for blending the traditional with the global and the tried-and-true with the experimental," wrote Radio & Records. Young explains, "We reference our past, hold tremendous respect for our elders, yet feel the need to make our own waves, to be brave pioneers. I truly believe there is a shift in consciousness occurring right now, and we desire to be a part of it."
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