Artist:Victoria Bailey Hometown: Orange County, California Album:A Cowgirl Rides On Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Rock Ridge Music
In Their Words: “A Cowgirl Rides On is my most vulnerable and honest piece todate. I am so proud of this record and of everyone who brought it to life. It started with a few heartbreak songs and a few gospel songs and it turned into an intertwined piece of those two things exactly: An unexpected breakup and what I grasped onto to get me through, my faith and the Gospel. I wanted this record to feel as raw as the songs felt to write, so we went into the studio and recorded live with a string band, all in one room together, and everyone poured a lot of love into each recording. You can hear it so clearly listening to the record. It’s perfect-imperfections, and just some good ol’ classic country storytelling. I can‘t even envision this project coming to life without my good friend and producer of the record, Brian Whelan (also a co-writer on a few of the tracks). I hope this record takes listeners to a good–feeling place – some sort of western, bluegrass dream – and brings them comfort even in the slightest way. Enjoy.” – Victoria Bailey
Artist:Thunder and Rain Hometown: Nashville, Tennesse Song: “Wendigos Wanderin'” Album:Storybook Sessions Release Date: October 20, 2023
In Their Words: “This song was inspired by a TikTok rabbit hole I went down last year that revealed the world of wendigos, also called skinwalkers. I got addicted to watching these terrible quality videos of deer with odd head shapes and dogs walking on hind legs with weird looks in their eyes. One of the TikToks said, ‘In Appalachia, if you hear your name in the woods, no you didn’t.’ I loved this concept that people know these terrifying creatures exist, but they don’t want to talk about it.
“One day while walking through Peeler Park in Madison outside of Nashville, I had an eerie feeling that something was following me. In my mind I sang the chorus of this song to the beat of my footsteps. I got home and wrote the song, then brought it to the band where we had a ton of fun arranging the harmony parts and spooky interludes. Our goal was to make people in the audience feel unsettled but still have fun, like a good horror movie.” – Erinn Peet Lukes
Track Credits:
Erinn Peet Lukes – Guitar/vocals
Laura Ray – Banjo/vocals
Amelia Ransom – Fiddle/vocals
Katie Blomarz-Kimball – Bass
Photo Credit: Jake Byrne Video Credits: Videographer – Andrew Hutton Audio Engineer – Tim Miller Recorded at Laughing Heart Studio in East Nashville, TN
At 89 years old, old-time music community leader, Grammy nominee, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee Alice Gerrard continues to place her music making and creativity decidedly in the present. While every lyric she utters and every note she picks feels effortlessly timeless, storied, and burnished – by her lived experiences and by days, weeks, and months of toil – her songs are ultimately forward-looking, leaning into the future with intention and wisdom. They also feel paradoxically light and joyous while at the same time they stand at the nexus of “what used to be” and “what will come.” Gerrard holds this position with equal power, agency, and insight.
Her latest album, the upcoming self-produced Sun to Sun, out October 20 on Sleepy Cat Records, captures the ineffable of the particular center-of-the-Venn-diagram that she inhabits, as a song collector, a knowledge bearer, and a folk music synthesizer of the world’s woes and struggles for justice. As witness to more than a handful of iterations of the modern movement for equal rights and racial, gender, and economic justice, Gerrard is able to challenge the systems and powers that be in grounded, measured, and realistic ways – ways that never limit possibilities for the future. (A remarkable trait in a creative who uses “old-timey” media and formats as her primary form of expression.)
“Remember Us,” the album’s stunning lead single, is – as Gerrard says via press release – an ode to “all the departed whose shoulders we stand on, whose work and lives we benefit from, who came or were transported against their will to this land.” Sung in stark a capella by Gerrard, Tatiana Hargreaves, and Reed Stutz, the track feels pulled directly from the gospel singing traditions of the American South that each stem from Black and formerly enslaved musical traditions. It speaks into community spaces the names, lives, and souls of so many Black, Brown, and Indigenous folks who lost their lives at the hands of empire and the police state.
“Old Jim Crow” makes the apropos point that segregation and racial apartheid in our country were not that long ago nor that far away, calling the partisan gerrymandering, political divisiveness, and waves of hatred befalling the U.S. exactly what they are: a new kind of the Old Jim Crow. “Keep It Off the Seat,” a Gerrard-penned modern classic, was inspired by the North Carolina General Assembly’s transphobic HB2 measure from 2016 – that also inspired our showcase, Shout & Shine, at IBMA in Raleigh and eventually saw Gerrard singing “Keep It Off the Seat” from the Shout & Shine stage in 2017 with Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, Hargreaves, and more. At her live shows, she encourages her audience to sing along during the rousing chorus: “Who cares where you pee? Just keep it off the seat!”
These themes and through lines would be notable in any bluegrass and old-time forebear’s catalog, but here, among Gerrard’s lifelong discography, they are certainly not outliers but continuations of a career that has always been committed to telling untold stories, singing unsung songs, spotlighting and amplifying invisible voices. Gerrard’s age, her position as a roots music elder, reinforces the importance of these subjects, and leaves subtle, existential fingerprints over the entire album. We know Gerrard’s commitment to singing and standing in truth, but in these songs and in this collection, we feel that commitment more than see it, we sense it just as strongly as we view it.
Sun to Sun was tracked in Durham, North Carolina – Gerrard’s home turf for decades, now – with a collection of collaborators and musicians pulled directly from her immediate community. Hargreaves, one of the most prominent fiddlers in the old-time and bluegrass scenes of late, has worked for Gerrard for a number of years as an archivist and assistant of sorts and features heavily on the album; Stutz, an in-demand multi instrumentalist who also straddles the fences between folk, bluegrass, old-time, and Americana, plays guitar and banjo. Other credits include first-rate sacred steel player DaShawn Hickman, Hasee Ciaccio on bass, Marcy Marxer guesting on guitar and cello banjo, Gail Gillespie, Nick Falk, and soulful songwriter, singer, producer, etc. Phil Cook – who collaborated with Gerrard on her 2014 album, Follow the Music – as well.
It makes perfect sense that a community builder such as Gerrard, who has always prioritized the most human aspects of roots music in her creative output, would be able to construct a collection of songs that feels pointed and convicting, but also organic and natural. Sun to Sun approaches heavy topics with ease, as a pair of good friends over a cup of tea on the porch can seemingly solve all of the world’s problems with passion, joy, and unbridled care for the forgotten and invisible among us. Gerrard calls on her folks, her musical and personal communities as well as her listeners and fans, to join with her in the journey she has begun and that we must continue, from sun to sun to sun to sun.
To celebrate Alice Gerrard’s selection as our October Artist of the Month, we’ll be diving back into our archive of Sitch Sessions, interviews, posts, and stories that highlight her incredible music – and her exemplary activism through that music and across the decades. In the meantime, enjoy our Essential Alice Gerrard playlist below, plus two of our BGS favorite Sitch Sessions of all time that feature Gerrard (viewable above), and watch for our Artist of the Month feature to come later in October.
(Editor’s Note: On Thursday, September 28, 2023, BGS contributor, musician, songwriter, and bluegrass industry leader Jon Weisberger presented BGS with IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award at the organization’s annual business conference. Below, enjoy Weisberger’s award presentation speech, adapted for print, and photos from the Industry Awards luncheon.)
The International Bluegrass Music Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award was created as the organization’s first honor, just a year after its 1985 founding. Among the first recipients were Bill Monroe, gospel songwriter Albert E. Brumley, and (now-BGS contributor) Neil V. Rosenberg.
After 1991, when the Hall of Honor (now the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame) was established, the DAA became a way to recognize a variety of accomplishments — a lifetime of achievement for many recipients, but also activities taking place in more compressed timespans, as when the Coen Brothers and T Bone Burnett were recipients in 2001 for the singular act of creating the film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and the accompanying soundtrack album. And while most of the recipients are people, some are entities, like WSM’s Grand Ole Opry (2000), the Station Inn (2003), and Bluegrass Unlimited magazine (2016).
Country Gongbang, of South Korea, perform during the IBMA Industry Awards Luncheon. (Photo by Rob Laughter)
Either way, the award criteria direct the selection committee to consider those who “have fostered bluegrass music’s image with developments that will broaden the music’s recognition and accessibility.” Further, the award criteria state, “Their contributions should be unique given the relative period of time in which they were made and should embody the spirit of one who pioneers or opens new possibilities for the music.” These are descriptions that fit the Bluegrass Situation perfectly.
Having celebrated its 10th anniversary just last year, this site contains an extensive amount of material that recalls a multitude of highlights from that first decade. So rather than recount them, I chose, when presenting the award—an invitation for which I’m deeply grateful — to recognize what Ed Helms, Amy Reitnouer Jacobs, their dedicated staff and many contributors have done to broaden the music’s recognition and accessibility and open new possibilities for the music is to look at why these things are important and how they have met the challenge.
For more than 50 years, bluegrass music has been dependent, for the renewal of its audiences and of its musicians, on exposure beyond its cloistered garden. From The Beverly Hillbillies through the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Circle album through the mainstream success of Ricky Skaggs and Alison Krauss to O Brother and, more recently, artists like Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings, our music has needed not only community-building institutions that cater to those already familiar with it, but a plethora of vehicles that expose new audiences to this music.
BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs reacts to Jon Weisberger’s DAA presentation. Justin Hiltner, managing editor, looks on. (Photo by Willa Stein)
This is how many people, including many in the IBMA, first became aware of bluegrass, and in the past decade, no one has done more to introduce this music to new audiences than the Bluegrass Situation. By covering the broad range of roots music under its “bluegrass” rubric, and by insisting on presenting the full range of bluegrass music and musicians in all their diversity, the Sitch has invited hundreds of thousands into the fold — and the same is true of the events the Bluegrass Situation has organized and sponsored.
Indeed, one of the Sitch’s distinctive contributions has been its dual role as a chronicler of the broad array of bluegrass and related musical artists and as a presenter, bringing the artists and the music they make directly to audiences. Especially through its curated stages at major music festivals, the Bluegrass Situation has introduced thousands — tens of thousands by now — to artists like bluegrass Hall of Famers Ricky Skaggs, Del McCoury, and Sam Bush.
Amy Reitnouer Jacobs speaks to the Industry Awards Luncheon audience. (Photo by Dan Schram)
In this way, the Sitch has spent more than a decade devoted both to the important work of bringing a wide variety of roots music to audiences across the country and around the world, and to the important work of bringing the whole array of bluegrass artists, from Larry Sparks, Junior Sisk, Michael Cleveland, and High Fidelity to the Infamous Stringdusters, Leftover Salmon, Molly Tuttle, and Billy Strings to the attention of those attracted to the Sitch’s website and events by its coverage and presentation of all the other roots music artists within their purview. So, someone who visits the site to read an Allison Russell feature has an opportunity to learn about Lynn Morris, while another who attends the Bourbon & Beyond festival to see The Black Keys might have their ear caught by the sound of Dan Tyminski or The Cleverlys performing on the Sitch’s curated stage.
These are the kinds of connections — and the kind of day in, day out, year in and year out work — that, in the words of the Distinguished Achievement Award criteria, “broaden the music’s recognition and accessibility.” These are the ways in which bluegrass is able to draw in new generations of fans — and new generations of musicians and industry activists, too. For more than 10 years, now, Ed Helms, Amy Reitnouer Jacobs and the Bluegrass Situation have been doing the work, and all of us in the bluegrass community have benefitted from their efforts. It gave me great pleasure to present them with this award.
L to R: Justin Hiltner, Amy Reitnouer Jacobs, Jon Weisberger at the 2023 IBMA Industry Awards Luncheon. (Photo by Willa Stein)
Photos by Rob Laughter, Dan Schram, and Willa Stein as noted; Lead image of Hiltner, Reitnouer Jacobs, and Weisberger by Dan Schram; All photos courtesy of IBMA.
Artist:P.J.M. Bond Hometown: Amsterdam, the Netherlands Album:In Our Time Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Concerto Records
In Their Words: “In Our Time is an interdisciplinary indie-folk album based entirely on Ernest Hemingway’s short-story collection from 1925. While obtaining my Literary Studies MA at the University of Amsterdam, I started to dream of making a record based on a work of literature. Lightning struck when I reread Hemingway’s In Our Time and discovered a musical potential that had never been unearthed before: there’s nature and bullfights, the unspoken horrors of war, beauty beside chaos, fire and rain, and just so much youthful exuberance contained in Hemingway’s writing. And so I locked myself in a log cabin to write and record the songs, one for each of the stories from Hemingway’s marvelous work of fiction. I am extremely proud of my own In Our Time, and I am convinced that lovers of both Americana and American literature may rejoice and appreciate this album. Listen to it on a long hike, or drive, or on a rainy Autumn day over a cup of tea (or glass of whisky).” – P.J.M. Bond
Artist:Swearingen & Kelli Hometown: AJ Swearingen – Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Jayne Kelli – Lapeer, Michigan; Current hometown – Nashville, Tennessee Song: “This Old House” Album:Build Myself Up From The Ground Release Date: October 27, 2023 Label: Gone Rogue Music
In Their Words: “It’s about endurance, hope, the passage of time, saying goodbye if you have to, and the longing for stability when your life is changing so fast you can’t find any stable ground. The song is literal and metaphorical. The house we were living in was sold out from underneath us, I lost my father, we had health challenges, and were free-falling. It was a crazy year. Sometimes when everything in your life is painfully uncertain, you have to dig your heels in and hold your ground. My mother still lives in the same house I grew up in. It’s old, but it’s an anchor in the family. I hope she can hold onto it. I think everyone can relate to that.” – AJ Swearingen
Artist:Hogslop String Band Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Mississippi Queen” Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Tone Tree Music
In Their Words: “‘Mississippi Queen’ is a story about an escaped inmate during the construction of the Richmond-Danville railroad. I wrote it years ago, and we have occasionally worked on it over the years, but we recently came up with a new arrangement of it that felt really good. The main character escapes on foot, follows the Tennessee River south, then across Alabama to find his family in North Mississippi. Ultimately, it’s a story about being separated from loved ones and doing whatever it takes to make it back home, which I think a lot of people can relate to.” – Daniel Binkley, banjo
Comprised of singer-songwriters and instrumentalists Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, Viv & Riley are an up-and-coming musical duo that defy definition. Their new album, Imaginary People, is a masterful blend that weaves together their shared reverence for traditional Appalachian music alongside indie-folk, pop-leaning adornments. The result is an emotionally potent 10-track album that covers a vibrant range of personal and universal truths — from the bittersweet nostalgia of visiting a beloved childhood hideaway decades later, to the poignant curiosities that accompany reckoning with climate grief.
Based out of the dynamic music scene in Durham, North Carolina, this duo is currently on tour across North America. With their insightful explorations of the past and creative probings of the future, Viv & Riley uncover rich and complicated explorations of what it means to be alive in this precise moment.
So how did the two of you first start making music together?
Vivian Leva: Well, we first started making music together when we first met in 2016, the summer after we both graduated high school. I grew up in Lexington, Virginia, and Riley grew up in Seattle, Washington, and we just happened to meet at a camp in Port Townsend, Washington. It’s one of those camps that has weeks back to back — there was a vocal week that I was teaching with my mom, and then Riley came to teach fiddle the following week. We happened to overlap by a few days, and Riley was there with his band The Onlies. The first night we met, we played music together all night! After that, I joined the band, and we also started playing together as a duo and writing songs.
Riley Calcagno: The origin of our sort of band, our duo, came later that year, in the fall. We had been communicating and texting some music back and forth, and then Viv invited me down to Asheville to play a gig with her and her dad. I was a fan of her dad, James Leva, for his fiddle and singing, so we did that gig. But we thought it’d be also fun to try out some duo material while we were down in the same place, even though we had never played songs just the two of us. We emailed a venue in Asheville called Isis Music Hall, which was a prominent venue there at the time. Somehow they slotted us in, on a Wednesday night, into this big hall that they had — 200-person capacity, maybe bigger. We had never played music together going into that, but we put together some material and we enlisted some friends to play with us. It was a bold move! Talk about faking it until you make it. Only about 15 people came out to the show, and I’m sure it sounded terrible. But it was fun!
That sounds amazing. So how would you describe your musical chemistry? What is it like playing together?
VL: Well, I think our initial musical chemistry initially came from our shared background in old time music and traditional music. That first night that we met, we played a lot of fiddle tunes, old music, and traditional songs. So it kind of began from a place of excitement about being exactly the same age, having never before met, and somehow both being raised around this same music that we have a shared respect and love for. So that was the initial spark of actually finding another young person who’s into the same niche genre and community. But since then it’s totally stretched into other realms. We are both so open to other kinds of music, and we have very similar tastes and aesthetics. It’s very easy to create music together because we come to it from a similar place.
RC: One of our dynamics in making music together has also been sharing our individual strengths with the other person. When we first started playing together, I couldn’t really sing harmony or find a harmony part. Vivian was very patient with me and helped me learn, and I still feel like I’m getting better all the time. That’s exciting!
VL: I just play guitar, and Riley plays every other instrument. He’s a great fiddler, guitar player, banjo player, mandolin player— instrumentally he brings so much to the table. And I feel I bring a lot of singing and songwriting-focused material to the table. We stretch each other, fill in the gaps for each other, and learn from each other.
What a beautiful thing! So what do you each feel like the biggest difference in your respective musicianships is?
RC: Viv is a very natural musician. She grew up traveling around with her parents as they toured, sitting in on harmonica at her dad’s gigs when she was only three or four. I also was born and raised around music, but it was a bit more formalized, whereas Viv’s music just comes very naturally and it’s not forced in any way. She does what she does super well and consistently and steadily, and I’m a bit more erratic. I take chances and get obsessed with things and take big leaps that sometimes fall flat. Every time she steps on stage, Viv can knock out a great performance, and I feel more streaky.
VL: But he tries lots of different things! And like he mentioned, Riley has a more formal background in music. He took lessons, he learned how to read music, he knows music theory, he did classical violin. So I think a big difference is that he technically knows what’s going on, whereas I don’t have the language or skills that he has. I’m definitely more intuition based than technically based.
You really balance each other out! So your new album, Imaginary People, just came out on September 15, and I’m wondering how your songwriting, as it appears on this album, has shifted since you first began as a duo.
RC: Well, in the past, before we started writing music for this record, we were living in different places so it was a lot of collaboration from afar. A lot of the songs on our last record came from texting voice memos back and forth. And you know, it’s not utterly different to work on them in person, but some of these new songs came out playing them together in the moment.
VL: Another big difference is Riley has started writing way more. So I think there’s more of an equal voicing on this record than in the past. There’s more of his perspective in it. And I think now that we’re living in the same place it’s also allowed us to write about a more diverse range of things. We’ve written a lot of intense emotional, romantic songs in the past, but in this recent past couple of years, we’re more interested in other things, like our shared experiences about other parts of life.
RC: And it’s also partly stylistic. Our last record was pretty much a country record. During that time, I was listening to a lot of classic country music, and this time we were listening to a wider range of things. Having a broader array of influences definitely helped us push the narrative forward.
What are you each proudest of on the album?
VL: I think what I am most proud of isn’t a specific track or anything — mostly it’s this feeling that I unlocked something. I think I let go of some fears in the process of making this record. I felt more free to just say yes to trying new things and became less concerned with things like what genre it was going to be considered, or if the people who liked our last record would like this record… and so on. I stopped worrying about categories like, “This doesn’t sound traditional enough,” or “This isn’t country enough,” or “That’s too rocker or indie.” Instead, I was able to adopt the mentality of “Hmm, that sounds interesting, let’s try and just do what feels fun!” I think I’m most proud that I was able to do that. It felt amazing to take things a little lighter and to roll with ideas that felt a little outside of the mold.
RC: When you start making music, being young musicians, you get immediately labeled. It’s not something that I think either of us necessarily anticipated, but when that first record got classified, people said it was Appalachian and classic country. And then the next one was classic country and Americana. Like “Hits-the-Spot Americana,” whatever that means. And I think there’s an urge for musicians, when you get labeled as something, to keep reproducing it. There’s this toothlessness to the modern Americana music label— it’s the creation of music that is literally meant to sound like other music under a category. I don’t have a problem with genre or specifications, I think it’s oftentimes useful, but it’s [useful] when you’re trying to reproduce sounds so that you can cater to an audience, it’s like you’re trying to sell something in a market that’s already been created. I think that can be the “dampification” of art. And while I think there’s been so many amazing things created within the Americana industry, I also think it often leads to less creativity and less interesting music.
Coming out of our last record, we had some buzz in the Americana world, and it would have been easy for us to make another “Hits-the-Spot Americana” record. But I don’t think that we did that, and I feel proud of that. Like Viv was saying, we didn’t just do what we were supposed to do. You know, there’s synthesizers, but there’s also a fiddle track, and personally, I think it all works together. So maybe if you’re an Americana devotee, you’re not going to love this album, but that’s okay with me. I think there’s a power in making an album that the machine doesn’t really know what to do with. The machine can make up albums and spit them out, but I feel proud that this one isn’t something that can just be spit out because of how we combine traditional and non-traditional music. For example, there were super organic moments where we all stood around one mic and sang together, coupled with other moments where we had things locked in, produced, and added synths because a particular song called for it. Making those two things coexist in the same ecosystem was definitely a challenge, but listening to the record, I think it all makes sense together.
It’s an album full of teeth! Now, before we wrap up, I have to ask: you’re our One to Watch, but who are you watching right now? Any creatives, musical artists, or otherwise that are inspiring you right now?
RC: One is our neighbor in Durham, North Carolina, Alice Gerrard. She’s almost 90, and she’s putting out a record on this indie label from the area called Sleepy Cat. She’s collaborating with a bunch of young people and their art for the record, like making these amazing videos. It’s a really cool thing! People around here are really conscious and thoughtful about aesthetics and sound and ethos. Everything is done with integrity, so it’s a cool scene around here in that way. Alice makes amazing music, I’m really excited for her upcoming record — I think we’ll all be glued to it once it comes out. Another one is our friend who we wrote two songs with on our previous record, “Love and Chains” and “Time Is Everything”— often people’s favorite songs of ours. I just had the honor of producing his upcoming record under his band’s name, Preacher & Daisy. I love the music, so I definitely want to give them a bump! The fun thing is that all this music is sourced locally from the Durham, North Carolina area, where we’re based.
VL: Some folks I’m enjoying listening to right now, not that they’re not already being watched, are: KC Jones, Canary Room, Dori Freeman, Alexa Rose.
Artist:The Brothers Comatose Hometown: San Francisco, California Song: “The IPA Song” (featuring Ronnie McCoury) Release Date: October 5, 2023 Label: Swamp Jam Records
In Their Words: “There comes a time in every band’s existence when you have speak up and let the chips fall where they may. We realize that this statement is really going to split our crowd, but it’s time we say something. We can’t drink IPAs anymore! They’ve gotten too strong and too hoppy and we just can’t do it any longer. All we drink are light beers now and maybe it’s because we turned into more of a quantity, not quality type of band… or maybe we just turned into a bunch of beer wusses. Either way, no more IPAs!
“It all stems from us overdoing it back in the day when we were sponsored by a beer company and they delivered 3 cases (72 beers!) of IPAs to every tour stop. So there we were, neck deep in super strong, warm IPAs in our van and we were just trying to keep up. It’s kinda like how you can’t drink Bacardi anymore because of that one bad night you had in college. That’s us with strong and hoppy beers. The song started off as a joke because venues kept putting IPAs in our green room, but we would never drink them. It turns out the message really hits home with a lot of people.
“When we were planning to go into the studio to record ‘The IPA Song,’ our mandolin player Greg wasn’t available, because he was out on tour with another band at the time. It turned out our buddy, mandolin maestro Ronnie McCoury, was going to be in town playing a show, so we got him to come and play mandolin and sing high harmonies on the track. And being the legend he is, he truly delivered the goods on this one.
“We recommend cracking a nice, cold, non-IPA beer to enjoy while watching this video.” – The Brothers Comatose
Photo courtesy of the Brothers Comatose, Pavement PR
Artist:Chris Jones & The Night Drivers Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Step Out in the Sunshine” Album:Pages In Your Hand Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “Ralph Stanley’s early 1970s Clinch Mountain Boys lineup of Roy Lee Centers, Jack Cooke, Curly Ray Cline, Keith Whitley, and Ricky Skaggs was a golden era for his band, in my opinion, and in my mid-teens their music was a major influence on me as I was just getting serious about playing music. The gospel album they did, Cry From the Cross, was and remains my favorite bluegrass gospel album of all time. It inspired my lead singing and guitar playing, and without consciously trying to do it, I learned to sing the baritone harmony part from Jack Cooke.
“I still have and cherish the original LP that I bought when I was around 15, though the jacket is a little battered and my name is written in brown magic marker on the back — because, you know, other kids in high school were likely to try to steal my Ralph Stanley records. I wanted to record a song from the album that I hadn’t heard anyone else do and that hadn’t become a Ralph Stanley standard, and so I was drawn to ‘Step Out in the Sunshine.’ We rearranged it slightly to fit our sound but it remains a tribute to the Stanley original.” – Chris Jones
Track Credits: Chris Jones – acoustic guitar, lead vocal Marshall Wilborn – bass Mark Stoffel – mandolin, harmony vocal Grace van’t Hof – banjo, harmony vocal
Photo Credit: Sandlin Gaither
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