Tag: Jeremy Garrett

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Tim O’Brien, Joe K Walsh, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This week our roundup of premieres and new music is a special, “Oops! All Bluegrass!” edition of the weekly series. But still with plenty of variety herein.

Kicking us off, Infamous Stringdusters fiddler Jeremy Garrett unveils “Fly Away to Your Love,” a driving and bluesy modern take on how love can take command of your life, drawing inspiration from Romeo and Juliet. Garrett’s labelmates, Montana-based bluegrass band the Lil Smokies, continue with the theme of love, romance, and sacrifice with “Lay it Down for Love” – because investing in love always pays off.

Guitarist Cameron Knowler showcases “Mule at the Wagon” an acoustic guitar trio number from his new album CRK, which releases today and text paints the beautiful – and stark – Yuma, Arizona, its surrounding states, deserts, and the plains. Plus, mandolinist and professor Joe K. Walsh launches his new album, Trust and Love, today so we’re highlighting a lovely and vibey instrumental, “Oatmeal,” that he appropriately wrote over breakfast.

Bluegrass legend, multi-instrumentalist picker and singer-songwriter Tim O’Brien announces his upcoming album, Paper Flowers, today as well. The lead track from the project, “Lonesome Armadillo,” was written with folk icon Tom Paxton and O’Brien’s partner Jan Fabricius, who features across the new album. It’s a funny tale of a backyard critter trap and a surprise armored four-legged prisoner. Meanwhile, supergroup Sister Sadie bring us a devastating and heartfelt song, “Let the Circle Be Broken,” about interrupting cycles of generational trauma and finding redemption in ourselves and support systems. Written by Sadies Deanie Richardson and Dani Flowers with in-demand songwriter and artist Erin Enderlin, the track is moving and deeply resonant.

Each week of new music is its own adventure, but this roundup feels particularly superlative. You know what we think– You Gotta Hear This!

Jeremy Garrett, “Fly Away to Your Love”

Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Drake, Colorado
Song: “Fly Away to Your Love”
Album: Storm Mountain
Release Date: March 28, 2025 (single); June 27, 2025 (album)
Label: Americana Vibes

In Their Words: “When troubles may come, in any relationship, the idea is to persevere – to overcome with grace. The hope of love eternal, or at least a love that stands the test of time. And in the end, like Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet, if it can’t be, then there is no hope of anything better. So, will it command your life? Is dying in hopes to be with the one you love better than life itself without that someone? Fly away to your love is a modern take, written in an old-time way, encompassing that passion and story in a song.” – Jeremy Garrett

Track Credits:
Jeremy Garrett – Lead vocal, fiddle
Chris Luquette – Guitar
Ryan Cavanaugh – Banjo
Travis Anderson – Bass

Cameron Knowler, “Mule at the Wagon”

Artist: Cameron Knowler
Hometown: Yuma, Arizona
Song: “Mule at the Wagon”
Album: CRK
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Worried Songs

In Their Words: “‘Bull at the Wagon’ is a fiddle tune I sourced from The Lewis Brothers, a great old New Mexico-via-Texas string band with a sweet tooth for rambunctiousness. I changed ‘bull’ to ‘mule’ because, well, I’ve had a few donkey encounters out in West Texas, not far from where the Lewises cut their four sides for the Victor label in 1929. It’s one of those titles that popped into my life at the damndest times – while playing tunes with Frank Fairfield in Los Angeles, performing at a border crossing party in Terlingua, Texas, and visiting with Norman Blake at his home in Rising Fawn, Georgia. To my ear, its melody moves past some of the stylized landscape found in American traditional music these days; maybe it’s the way the four chord asserts itself in the second part, or the way the five chord lands so starkly and dominantly in the third; this mix of quick and static passages is highly generative for arranging and improvising.

“I wanted to see what this tune would yield in a lilting, sort of pastoral setting, so I called my talented friends Jordan Tice and Robert Bowlin who graciously agreed to record it with me at The Tractor Shed in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Jordan tuned to open G (capo 2), I played out of standard (capo 2), Robert in standard with no capo. Mr. Bowlin and I are playing our old Gibson J-35s and Jordan is using his Preston Thompson OM. The performance found on CRK is one of the first takes.” – Cameron Knowler

Track Credits:
Robert Bowlin – Guitar
Cameron Knowler – Guitar
Sean Sullivan – Engineer
Jordan Tice – Guitar, producer

The Lil Smokies, “Lay It Down for Love”

Artist: The Lil Smokies
Hometown: Montana
Song: “Lay It Down for Love”
Album: Break of the Tide
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Americana Vibes

In Their Words: “The greatest honor of my life is to have spent it fully immersed in music. That’s not to say it hasn’t come without cost. Words can’t carry the weight of the sacrifices required, though I’ve enjoyed trying to explain. All I know is that the loss and doubt I’ve faced has given me a more beautiful life than I ever imagined when I set out on this path. I wouldn’t change a thing. ‘Lay it Down for Love’ was written in some of the darkest days of my life, when there was no evidence that my wagers would come back to me. Today I hear it as a reminder that those days come and go, but investing in love always pays off.” – “Rev,” Matthew Rieger

Track Credits:
Andy Dunnigan – Dobro, vocals
Matthew Rieger – Guitar, vocals
Jake Simpson – Fiddle, guitar, vocals
Jean Luc Davis – Bass
Sam Armstrong Zickefoose – Banjo

Tim O’Brien & Jan Fabricius, “Lonesome Armadillo”

Artist: Tim O’Brien & Jan Fabricius
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Lonesome Armadillo”
Album: Paper Flowers
Release Date: June 6, 2025
Label: Howdy Skies

In Their Words: “There’s an awful lot of talk about migrants invading from the south, but nobody’s talking about armadillos. After we started trippin’ over little holes in our yard, Jan baited a raccoon trap, focused the security camera on it, and then we drove to Memphis to play a show. On the set break, we saw we’d caught the hard-shelled offender, but after the show we saw that he’d arched his back, bent the trap, and escaped. We told Tom Paxton about it the next week and he said, ‘Let’s tell his story.’

“Jan and I started weekly co-writing sessions with Tom in the spring of 2023 and twelve of the fifteen songs on our June 6th release, Paper Flowers, come from those Wednesday afternoon Zooms. It’s our first real collaborative project and a narrative of Jan’s and my life together runs through the record – from courtship to growing old together, with a road trip, the armadillo, and a granddaughter’s wedding in between.” – Tim O’Brien

Track Credits:
Larry Atamanuik – Drums
Mike Bub – Bass
Jan Fabricius – Mandolin, vocal, songwriting
Mike Rojas – Accordion
Justin Moses – Resophonic guitar
Tim O’Brien – Guitar, vocal, songwriting
Tom Paxton – Songwriting

Sister Sadie, “Let the Circle Be Broken”

Artist: Sister Sadie
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Let The Circle Be Broken”
Release Date: April 4, 2025

In Their Words: “Dani Flowers, Erin Enderlin, and myself wrote ‘Let the Circle Be Broken’ right after my Dad passed away. He was an abusive man who verbally, emotionally, and sexually abused me for most of my 18 years living at home with him. When I confronted him as an adult, he said that it had been done to him as a child. This song is about that generational trauma and abuse that keeps getting passed down. The continuing of that trauma and abuse stops with me. It doesn’t go any further. It was such a healing and therapeutic experience to write this with Dani and Erin. The recording session for this was so emotional for me. I felt like I was talking to my Dad at the end during the instrumental fade. He was there and he heard me. That circle is officially now broken.” – Deanie Richardson, fiddle

“Deanie, Erin, and I wrote this song about generational trauma, which each of us have experienced different levels of. This song is about how we’ve decided that these cycles that have been repeated over and over in our families end with us. I was born into a family of some of the worst types of people to ever exist in this world and it is sometimes so hard to sit with the fact that you come from a line of people who are capable of doing such awful things to others — to you. While I can’t say the same for many of my family members, I can say for sure that my children will never experience from me what I experienced from my mother and what she experienced from hers and what she experienced from hers.” – Dani Flowers, vocals

“The song ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ touches us all within this band because of its very personal nature. We feel it every time we perform it on stage. Deanie, Dani, and Erin wrote an incredible song that touches the audience. It’s not uncommon to look out and see tears streaming down people’s faces. As a creator, it’s very overwhelming.” – Gena Britt, banjo

“I resonate so deeply with the message of ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ and I find myself a little emotional every time we play it. As someone who is actively working to heal my own generational family trauma, seeing the strong women around me working to do the same makes me feel hopeful, grateful and connected.” – Rainy Miatke, mandolin

“I think ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ is a beautifully written song that a lot of people need to hear. It has a very important message about stopping generational messes and I cry almost every time we play it. I love Deanie so much and I know this song means so much to her, as it does to all of us. ‘Let The Circle Be Broken’ I think could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, too, and that’s the sign of a fantastic song. Dani Flowers, Deanie Richardson, and Erin Enderlin crafted an amazing piece of art.” – Jaelee Roberts, vocals

Track Credits:
Deanie Richardson – Fiddle
Gena Britt – Baritone banjo
Dani Flowers – Lead vocal
Jaelee Roberts – Harmony vocal
Mary Meyer – Mandolin, piano
Maddie Dalton – Upright bass, harmony vocal
Seth Taylor – Acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Dave Racine – Drums, percussion

Joe K. Walsh, “Oatmeal”

Artist: Joe K. Walsh
Hometown: Portland, Maine
Song: “Oatmeal”
Album: Trust and Love
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Label: Adhyâropa Records

In Their Words: “There are so many tunes that I love that are comprised of an entirely (or almost entirely) diatonic melody which has been harmonized with non-diatonic chords. Some favorite examples are ‘Moon River,’ ‘Someone to Watch Over Me,’ David Grisman’s ‘Dawg’s Waltz,’ Pat Metheny’s tune ‘James,’ and Matt Flinner’s tune ‘Fallen Star.’ I’ve taught a tune-writing ensemble at Berklee for many years, with the idea that each of member of the ensemble writes and presents a tune every week, and I like to use this idea as a prompt for the students. This tune was one I wrote over breakfast in response to this prompt one morning before heading to Boston for school.” – Joe K. Walsh

Track Credits:
Joe K. Walsh – Mandolin
Rich Hinman – Pedal steel
Zackariah Hickman – Bass
John Mailander – Fiddle
Dave Brophy – Drums

Photo Credit: Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius by Scott Simontacchi; Joe K. Walsh by Natalie Conn.

LISTEN: Armchair Boogie, “Gone in a Day”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Armchair Boogie
Hometown: Madison, Wisconsin
Song: “Gone in a Day”
Album: Hard Time & Deadlines
Release Date: January 19, 2024 (single); March 15, 2024 (album)

In Their Words: “In my experience, some of the best songs are written to completion (or almost) within a few hours of starting. That’s what happened with ‘Gone in a Day.’ When you feel strongly about the subject matter, ideas tend to flow with far less second guessing. There was no rush, but all the feelings, words, and melodies were at the ready. It also didn’t take long at all to think of adding in our friend Jeremy Garrett on the fiddle to take it to new heights. We think it’ll be just as smooth a listen as it was to put together.” – Ben Majeska

Track Credits: 

Ben Majeska – acoustic guitar, lead vocals & lyrical credits
Denzel Connor – drums, backup vocals
Eli Frieders – electric bass
John ‘Augie’ Dougherty – banjo, backup vocals
Jeremy Garrett – fiddle

Photo Credit: Dan Waterman

LISTEN: The HillBenders, “Take On The World (Give ‘Em Hell!)”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: The HillBenders
Hometown: Springfield, Missouri
Song: “Take On The World (Give ‘Em Hell!)”
Release Date: September 29, 2023

In Their Words: “‘Take On The World (Give ‘Em Hell!)’ embodies the age-old tale of a directionless, troubled soul. We’ve all been there in one way or another. Maybe doing things you ought not be doing just for the excitement of doing it. But then comes along someone that shows you how much more there is to life. It’s almost like you’ve turned into a completely different person after falling in love with them. Like you’re under some sort of spell of theirs. And all of a sudden, all that trouble doesn’t seem as fun anymore. How long it lasts is maybe for another song.” – Mark Cassidy, banjo

“The tune was recorded at Red Rock Studios in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, while having a rare day off on tour. Primarily used to record jazz music, the studio had a beautifully organic design nestled in the quiet rural countryside. We asked Jeremey Garrett (of the Infamous Stringdusters) if he would lay some fiddle down on the song and he cut some buttery tracks at his studio, including a twin fiddle part that made the final mix. Jeremy is a great cat and his involvement really elevated the song as a whole. Since adding our new drummer, John Anderson, we have explored all sorts of new musical possibilities — but it was nice to return to our bluegrass roots on this number.” – Jim Rea, guitar

Photo Credit: Robert Crook

LISTEN: Jeremy Garrett, “How Low” (feat. Bonnie Sims)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Loveland, Colorado
Song: “How Low” (featuring Bonnie Sims)
Release Date: July 7, 2023
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “‘How Low’ is a cover of a solo artist named José Gonzalez. He describes the song as being about ‘mindless consumerism.’ I fell in love with the vibe this song encompasses and had a vision to see what it would be like to produce the song as a bluegrass-type ensemble piece. I brought in a couple of special guests for this one — Bonnie Sims of Taylor and Sims, Everybody Loves An Outlaw, and Big Richard is my singing partner (and she tears it up!) I also had Ryan Cavanaugh guest on banjo. I hope you dig it!” – Jeremy Garrett

Photo Credit: George Trent Grogan, Mountain Trout Photography

The Travis Book Happy Hour: Jeremy Garrett (The Infamous Stringdusters)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

I know Jeremy Garrett about as well as anyone else, excepting his wife Connie, of course. We’ve traveled together for 17 years as founding members of The Infamous Stringdusters and spent about a decade sharing a room when we traveled. We affectionately referred to each other as our “road wives.” Beyond being a great songwriter, brilliant fiddle player, and vocalist of the highest order, he has a cutting wit and a steadfast dedication to his art and his craft. I’m grateful to call him a friend and look forward to many more years creating music and traveling with this bluegrass titan.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3

This podcast is an edited distillation of the full-length happy hour which aired live on April 27, 2021. Huge thanks to Jeremy Garrett and Jon Stickley.

Timestamps:

0:05 – Soundbyte
0:43 – Introduction
1:52 – Live introduction by Bill
2:54 – “Rise Sun”
5:32 – “That’s Someone’s Mother”
8:10 – “Home From the Forest”
12:52 – Introducing Jeremy Garrett
13:50 – Interview 1
19:10 – “I’m Not the Enemy”
23:43 – “I Am Who I Am”
27:15 – Interview 2
45:42 – “Wishing Well”
53:10 – “Windy in Nashville”
56:24 – “A Hard Life Makes a Good Song”
1:00:52 – Outro

Editor’s note: The Travis Book Happy Hour is hosted by Travis Book of the GRAMMY Award-winning band, The Infamous Stringdusters. The show’s focus is musical collaboration and conversation around matters of being. The podcast is the best of the interview and music from the live show recorded in Asheville, NC.

The Travis Book Happy Hour Podcast is brought to you by Thompson Guitars and is presented by Americana Vibes and The Bluegrass Situation as part of the BGS Podcast Network. You can find the Travis Book Happy Hour on Instagram and Facebook and online at thetravisbookhappyhour.com.

Photo Credit: George Trent Grogan, Mountain Trout Photography

TIDAL’s Bluegrass: Dolby Atmos Playlist Is Changing the Listening Game

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Ask any fan of bluegrass, and part of what inspires their love is the experience of feeling the music.

The reverberations of wood and string. Thick harmony hanging in the air. That magic interplay of creative spirits trading instrumental breaks back and forth without speaking a word. Until now, you could really only get that in a live setting. But with Dolby Atmos, we’re getting closer than ever to capturing it. 

This new spatial audio format is slowly changing the listening experience – and for once, bluegrass music is at the forefront. Labels like Crossroads Music Group – which includes Mountain Home Music Company and Organic Records – are recording and mastering their music with Dolby Atmos, and platforms like TIDAL are fully onboard, adopting it for their “Bluegrass: Dolby Atmos” playlist.

It’s a win-win, really. Fans get that full-bodied, textured-listening experience – and artists love it, too. According to them, bluegrass is particularly well suited to the spatial-audio revolution.

“It’s perfect because of the organic nature of the music,” says Darren Nicholson (formerly of Balsam Range), who is featured on the TIDAL playlist. “It feels like you are standing in the middle of a jam session in the living room.”

“As a listener of bluegrass music, it feels groundbreaking to listen to the genre in Dolby Atmos,” adds Jesse Iaquinto of Fireside Collective, praising how the Bluegrass: Dolby Atmos playlist highlights bluegrass’s “depth” – with all its tone and timbre included.

In fact, artists like Jeremy Garrett of The Infamous Stringdusters say bluegrass is “prime candidate” for new tech like Dolby audio.

“Bluegrass music in particular is very dynamic and has great sonic separation built in by nature of the instruments usually involved,” he explains. “The extra space gives it the breathing room the music needs to really ‘pop’ for a recorded music listening experience.”

That was the idea for TIDAL’s Editor-in-Chief, Tony Gervino, too. He calls bluegrass “one the most dynamic and vital branches within today’s country music,” and notes that “as the Bluegrass sound itself expands, so do the listening possibilities for its fans.”

He and his team created the Bluegrass: Dolby Atmos playlist to celebrate that very expansion. They ended up with an expert-curated lineup which includes artists from across the bluegrass spectrum, from Lonesome River Band and Balsam Range, to Unspoken Tradition, Benson, The Grascals, The Cleverlys and more. Many of them are also part of Crossroads Music Group.

To them, the magic is in the way Atmos recording makes each listener feel surrounded – even through tiny computer speakers. You don’t just hear the notes, you hear the way each musician and their instrument play off one another, and how it all blends together. 

Before now, that has never really been captured in recorded music – not even bluegrass, with its intricately woven textures and overlapping parts. So for Iaquinto, this new playlist is especially gratifying.

“With no drums or percussion, bluegrass musicians are always playing subtle but intricate parts,” he explains. “These can go unheard on other forms of audio, but with spatial audio, they are brought to the forefront. 

“The vocals are brightened up and colored in a way that finally gives the recorded songs the respect and focus they deserve,” he goes on. “As someone who loves acoustic music, I am extremely happy with the level of quality provided by Dolby audio.”

For artists like Nicholson, the appreciation is perhaps more simple. Calling Dolby Atmos the “ultimate experience,” he praises the way fans can finally sense the attention to detail bluegrass musicians put into their work – a labor of love he likens to crafting “an amazing bouillabaisse.”

You might not know what’s in it, but you know it’s delicious.

“I’m proud of it. I’m proud for listeners to hear it,” Nicholson says, speaking of his music being recorded in Dolby Atmos, and placed on playlists like TIDAL’s Bluegrass: Dolby Atmos. “It is the way to enjoy the music with the utmost clarity. It’s a completely unique listening experience. Whether the average listener knows why, they do know that something is different. And in a good way.”

Editor’s Note: This post is sponsored by Crossroads Label Group.

Crossroads Label Group Sets a New Benchmark With Dolby Atmos

Posted on by Editor

Like a lot of bluegrass musicians, Infamous Stringdusters fiddler Jeremy Garrett had never given much thought to “spatial audio.” He already had a good professional setup for home recording and playback in conventional stereo, and that seemed like more than enough. Getting into the next generation of three-dimensional sound, highly touted though it is, just didn’t seem important.

All that changed, however, as soon as Garrett actually heard his own music in Dolby Atmos, Dolby Laboratories’ surround-sound mixing process. It happened at the North Carolina headquarters of Crossroads Label Group, where Garrett records as a solo act. It just took one demonstration for him to come away a believer.

“It blew my mind,” he says. “Seriously. You can try to explain it ‘til the cows come home. But until you experience it, you won’t understand just how eye-opening it is. Stereo can give you a pseudo-in-the-room feel. But Dolby Atmos is like really being in the room, where you hear everything in depth and full spectrum from low to middle to high range. Even listening on a phone, you could tell the difference.”

This next iteration of surround sound is quickly becoming the sonic standard for the record industry’s high-rent district, with most major-label releases coming out in the format. But it’s also the new benchmark for Crossroads and its labels, Mountain Home and Organic, which is taking a far more proactive approach to high fidelity than most roots labels. Crossroads has been evangelizing about Dolby Atmos for the past year and making moves to put out all its new music in surround sound.

 

 

Of course, doing this takes major investments in terms of both hardware and time. Crossroads has gone so far as to build its own studio facility in California to do Dolby Atmos mixes and stay in control of the process. Company management is firmly convinced that this will be essential to survive, with Crossroads co-founder Mickey Gamble touting it as the future of the record industry – especially online, where the vast majority of business takes place now.

“Every single reproductive method before this, from wax cylinders to vinyl and up through the chain including compact discs, has had flaws,” says Gamble. “This doesn’t, which is why it’s important for us to be there. We still sell a little bit of physical product, but that’s mostly by artists at the table at their show. The business is drastically different now, and everything we do is aimed at increasing an artist’s streaming profile. This is just another piece of that. The time is not too far off where, if you want to have a streaming profile, it will have to be with Dolby Atmos because the technology is taking over the music business. If you can’t or won’t do it, you won’t be in the business.”

This kind of high-end immersive surround sound has long been the standard in movie theaters, but it’s only recently emerged for listening to music. Major streaming services including Apple, Amazon and TIDAL all use variations of three-dimensional surround sound — although Spotify and YouTube remain two notable stereo-only holdouts (and for that reason, Mountain Home continues to do conventional stereo mixes of its music alongside the Dolby Atmos versions).

Nevertheless, the overall trend is running toward universal adoption of three-dimensional surround sound for music, and major labels have been busily upgrading their catalogs. Among the albums that Gamble routinely plays for visitors to show off Dolby Atmos sound are Queen’s 1980 album The Game (“which I swear will take your head off,” he says) and the 1959 Miles Davis masterpiece Kind of Blue.

 

 

One metric to track surround sound’s rapid growth is the number of studios set up to mix in Dolby Atmos. There were just 30 Dolby Atmos-capable studios in the spring of 2020, but that figure has gone up to around 600 in 2022, according to Billboard. On the consumer’s end, there are also more and more playback devices for surround sound on the market, including car-stereo systems.

“The business aspect of it is huge and growing really fast, which is why we feel like we need to be in it,” says Gamble. “Personally, I’ve been listening to almost nothing but Dolby Atmos for the last year and a half – classical, jazz, rock, bluegrass, everything. And if I go back and try to listen to something in regular stereo now, it sounds dull and uninteresting. The difference is just that powerful. Without exception, every artist we’ve brought in to hear it has come out saying, ‘I want this for me.’”

To that end, Crossroads started by releasing immersive-audio mixes of its top songs of 2022, from artists such as Balsam Range, Tray Wellington, The Grascals, Lonesome River Band, Sister Sadie, and Sideline.

Surround sound is not the record industry’s first new technology to be touted as a major sonic revolution, going back to four-channel quadraphonic sound in the 1970s. But where quadraphonic failed to catch on because it required listeners to shell out for new hardware, Dolby Atmos doesn’t require an equipment upgrade to get improved fidelity (although the effect is more impressive on modern playback devices).

 

 

“The amount of immersion you get changes depending on the device,” says Crossroads Music chief engineer Scott Barnett. “But the immersive experience will scale to the system you’re listening on, automatically and in real time, whether it’s in your living room with 13 surround-sound speakers or on an iPhone through earbuds. The sound is object-based rather than channel-based – not just left or right but with a three-dimensional field. Dolby Atmos can present an enhanced experience without sacrificing any tone or dynamics.”

Another improvement that Gamble cites is that surround sound does away with the sonic compression of stereo sound, which limits the tones you can hear, and that improvement applies to any listening device. Indeed, Garrett has been demonstrating the dramatic differences of surround sound to friends using mobile phones – dialing up his song “River Wild” on Spotify stereo on one phone, and then in immersive audio on Apple Music on another. Even when heard on small phone speakers, there’s an audible difference.

“There’s a curve to go along with this, of course,” says Garrett. “It’s an extra process, and it takes quite a bit to get an entire record mixed for surround sound. But if it’s at all possible, I want every single song of mine to be in Dolby Atmos from now on because there’s no comparison. The experience is over the top, nothing else comes close.”

If Gamble has his way, that will be possible to do.

“I’ve always believed that presenting music with clarity will have an influence on listeners’ attachment,” Gamble says. “That’s true for the casual listener as well as the audiophile. What makes it dramatic are the placements in space, and the harmonics you can hear because there’s no compression. It helps music sound the same way it does if you’re standing right in front of the people playing it.”

WATCH: Jeremy Garrett, “I Am the River Wild”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Loveland, Colorado
Song: “I Am the River Wild”
Album: River Wild
Release Date: March 25, 2022
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “‘I Am the River Wild’ is a song that supports a double meaning. It is actually about the spirit and the wildness of a raging river, but it’s also about personality. Perhaps that personality is mine as the songwriter, or maybe it translates to you that way as the listener when you hear the lyrics to the song. Like a free-spirited person, a river has calm waters, and rough waters… free waters and from time to time, raging waters. We made the video for this song in a pristine part of the southern Colorado wilderness, way up in the mountains, where life to rivers begins. The wolf and the moose bring an amazing feeling to the video and the story unfolds nicely in that setting. I hope you enjoy ‘I Am the River Wild.'” — Jeremy Garrett

Photo Credit: George Trent Grogan, Mountain Trout Photography

The Infamous Stringdusters’ Travis Book and Jeremy Garrett Take the Long View

Posted on by Editor

Now in their 17th year, the Infamous Stringdusters have established themselves as one of the most prominent and prolific bands in modern bluegrass. Asked if he ever thought the Stringdusters would be together that long, bassist Travis Book candidly replies, “Yes. That was the plan when we started the band, not to be side guys working for someone else or to go it alone. If we needed to, any of us could be a bandleader at this point. When we started, our plan was to do this for as long as we could. Looking at each other, we all wanted this group to keep making music together for 30 or 40 years. I hope that’s not conceited or hubris to say.”

Fiddle player Jeremy Garrett adds, “I’ve been in side bands and seen the writing on the wall as to how far you can go that way, as opposed to taking the risk of taking the leap yourself. Many struggle and have difficulty with that. Every time I think about it, I’m glad we took the risk. It’s a big step to believe in yourself enough to do that, and I feel lucky that we realized that early on. We’ve all spent a long time in the trenches, building it up. Looking back, we have an awesome band and business, and we still love each other. We’re having the time of our lives out here.”

The band’s musical passion and mutual respect are evident on their new album, Toward the Fray, and indeed throughout their catalog. In April, they’ll head to Las Vegas where A Tribute to Bill Monroe is nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Bluegrass Album category. (They won their first Grammy for their 2017 project, Laws of Gravity.) BGS caught up with the Stringdusters — our Artist of the Month for March — for a series of three conversations on the road. Here is part two with Book and Garrett, who each wrote multiple songs for Toward the Fray.

Editor’s Note: Read our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Andy Hall and Andy Falco.

BGS: So you’re up for another Grammy, and of course you’re going, right?

Travis Book: We are. When they rescheduled it to April in Las Vegas, that just so happened to be the weekend we’ll be at Wondergrass. We have Sunday off and it’s within driving distance, so we’ll bus down there. We went the first two times, too. Even though it’s a massive undertaking and not cheap, you’ve got to go. We make it a priority. It can be hard for people who aren’t intimately involved with the music industry to understand what we’re doing. You know, aunts or uncles thinking “our nephew and his little bluegrass band.” Winning a Grammy definitely helped them have a better perspective on us having some success. It especially made my dad happy. He’s a hardcore music fan, subscribes to the magazines. He’s the one who turned me onto Pearl Jam and Radiohead. He was happier about it than anybody.

Were you into alternative rock first, before bluegrass?

Book: That and classic rock — Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd. That was the music that really got me, although I remember wearing out Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik in middle school. Getting from there to bluegrass wasn’t that complicated. I was into Grateful Dead and Phish when I ran into some guys in a garage jam band that needed a bass player. When that ended, the guitar player asked if I’d ever played bluegrass. He was from Georgia, turned me on to Yonder Mountain String Band, Old and In the Way. We started jamming on bluegrass and the harmony singing is what really got me into it.

I grew up singing hymns with my parents, and those three-part harmonies really resonated as fundamental. Singing is my jam, it’s why I got into music in the first place, and singing harmonies is what drew me in. It was not long until bluegrass was all I wanted to do, go to bluegrass and folk festivals. I’d go to the college library and print off pages and pages of traditional bluegrass lyrics. Bluegrass Album Band, I learned all that stuff. I thought it was so cool that you could go anywhere with acoustic instruments, no electricity required, and have this massive shared lexicon you could play with people.

On the new album, your song “Pearl of Carolina” is particularly good.

Book: I co-wrote that with Jon Weisberger, my neighbor in Brevard, North Carolina. The hook to that song came from me writing a script for my show, Travis Book Happy Hour, which livestreams from the Grey Eagle in Asheville. I’d say it’s Late Night meets eTown. I was trying to write an introduction: “Live from Asheville, it’s BLANK of Carolina.” I was wondering what should go there, “pearl” came to mind and then I thought, “That should be a song.” The melody and chord change came to me while I was riding my bike, and I sang that into my phone. It felt a little “country” to me and I did not have the guts to finish it. That descending chord change seemed a little down the middle. The main thing Jon helped with was making sure I didn’t dilute it and miss the opportunity to write it right. He really kept me on track. It’s a song that feels like it wrote itself.

Jeremy, you have side-hustle projects, too — a new solo record, right?

Jeremy Garrett: Yep, River Wild. Music abounds. It’s a really good time right now, music flowing out of everyone. I’m stoked to be coming out of the pandemic with great new songs and tunes to play. There’s the Stringdusters album, and my record is out March 25. We can’t stop creating, writing about things in our world. As a musician and aspiring poet, I want to put things into words and share them.

Since you’re writing material for both the group and your own thing, how do you know where a song should go?

Garrett: There’s definitely a Stringdusters flavor, to where I can usually tell if something will be a Stringdusters song right away. Not always, I do get surprised sometimes. When we do the show-and-tell song-sharing, I’ll keep one wildcard song I throw out to see what everyone thinks and sometimes that’s the one that catches their ears. A lot of times I know the spice level needed to bring to the Stringdusters pot — a certain energy that will go over good live. That’s our MO, bringing the live show in the hottest way we can.

Travis, you mentioned that “Pearl of Carolina” initially felt too country. Another of your songs here, “I’m Not Alone,” seems like it could also pass for country.

Book: I try to stay out of my own way with that stuff. I remember Paul McCartney saying about early Beatles songs, “We didn’t write them to be memorable, we wrote them that way because we had to remember ’em ourselves.” There’s something to be said for songs that stick with you and are memorable. I can come up with crazy ideas, but the stuff that keeps running around in my head days later, that’s when I know I’m onto something. The older I get, the less afraid I am about writing stuff that’s straightforward. You want to make music that’s quality and creative, complex, interesting. But it’s better if it resonates and sticks, becomes a part of lives and minds.

All three songs I wrote for this album are in that vein. “Pearl of Carolina” is a little more complicated, but “I’m Not Alone” is just that one-line chorus. The first three lines are the same melody, the third line I reharmonize; change the chord structure, then the last line the lead drops down to something very similar to the baritone part from the first two lines. It’s such a simple idea, but it still knocks me on my ass when I listen. It makes the chorus pop right out. The old me might have thought it was too sappy or not complicated enough. I feel fortunate to have grown up enough to get past that. It seems so simple, but essential, like a mantra.

Beyond who plays what instrument, how would you summarize each person’s role in the Stringdusters?

Garrett: I think we are that rare democracy among bands. Everyone has their individual talents, things they’re better suited for. But I think we’re all into the big picture. That’s something we often discuss all together, vibing on the same wavelength about the band’s trajectory, how to create records and unify messages with five different guys. There are issues where we disagree, but we almost never have to vote on it. We just talk it out and eventually come around to being of the same mind about it almost all the time. We’re lucky that way. Panda (banjo player Chris Pandolfi) is very technically minded, handles a lot of the business, and Travis is a great booking agent, keeps an eye on the schedule because he knows how to make that flow. We hope to all bring something to the table. It’s always been that way.

Book: Everyone can kind of choose their level of engagement. We’re all allowed to integrate and contribute however we want. Business, music, interpersonal stuff all continues to move along and different people are engaged with different parts at different levels. But every year, we grow more alike. Every tour, we’re more on the same page. Ten years ago, there were a lot more differences of opinion than there are now. To me, the decision-making on goal-setting, recording, the way to approach shows and everybody’s role musically is all so much easier now than a decade ago.

Garrett: Even a decade ago, it was already better than most bands. We’ve always been lucky for sure.

Book: A major priority is keeping everyone involved and equal and on the same page to make sure everyone gets what they need out of this. Everyone has an equal say and there’s no bandleader. That can make it challenging to be a fan. So much is going on and everybody gets a chance to lead. If you just want to be fed the same singer doing the same type of songs all night, we’re maybe not the band for you. It’s highly dynamic. Any given song or even moment, a different guy can be the leader. That’s part of what keeps us interesting as a band — everybody getting a chance to take the reins, get support and then on to the next thing. We’re Jeremy’s backing band during his solo, then mine when I’m singing the hook. Moment to moment, everyone is fully supported.

Want to win tickets to see the Infamous Stringdusters at the Echoplex in Los Angeles? Enter our ticket giveaway.

Photo Credit: Jay Strausser Visuals

Artist of the Month: The Infamous Stringdusters

Posted on by Editor

The Infamous Stringdusters continue their career ascent with Toward the Fray, a new album that comes on the heels of a Grammy nomination for a Bill Monroe tribute EP and hosting duties at the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards. Their first new album in three years, Toward the Fray captures the live energy of the band, though all five guys put an emphasis on the lyrics, too. Upon announcing the project, band member Andy Hall stated, “Sometimes the times call for some serious reflection, and these songs really hit home. Get ready to go deep with us!”

As the Bluegrass Situation’s Artist of the Month for March, the ‘Dusters paired off for upcoming interviews, with longtime sound engineer Drew Becker joining the fray. Look for the award-winning band in Colorado later this month before the ensemble travels the West Coast. Then it’s back to Colorado for a stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater just before Memorial Day — another reason to look forward to summer.

Although the world has seen its share of upheaval over the last few years, which is certainly reflected in Toward the Fray, the band lineup has remained consistent: Travis Book on bass, Andy Falco on guitar, Jeremy Garrett on fiddle, Andy Hall on Dobro, and Chris Pandolfi on banjo (and he’s also the only member who doesn’t take a lead vocal). The band released the album on their own label, Americana Vibes.

In our 2019 interview, Book stated, “Our band can be challenging to listen to because it’s not one-dimensional. You’ve got four guys that sing, and every song sounds a little different, and certainly the way I approach every song is as though it’s its own universe. The people who are into our band, they’re ready to go wherever. If you’re into one singer or one style, you’re not going to get very much of that when you come to our show.”

That’s still the case with Toward the Fray, as the band members shuffle the songwriting credits among them, including the exceptional instrumentals. It’s a project that should easily sustain the band throughout the festival season. Keep an eye out for our BGS Artist of the Month interviews in the coming weeks, and meanwhile, enjoy our Essentials playlist.

Photo Credit: Jay Strausser Visuals