Artist:Meadow Mountain Hometown: Denver, Colorado Song: “Count Me In” Album: June Nights Release Date: May 22, 2024
(Editor’s Note: Over the last four weeks, Colorado-based bluegrass band Meadow Mountain has premiered a series of exclusive, live performance videos of tracks from their just released album, June Nights. This is the final installment of their SkyTheory Sessions. Find links to the full series below.)
In Their Words: “I originally conceived of this song as a ‘rewriting’ of ‘Rocky Mountain High’ by John Denver. The first lyric from ‘Count Me In’ is: ‘Twenty-seven came and went like a storm, hanging on by the songs I wrote on the day that I was born,’ which is an homage to Denver’s lyrics: ‘He was born in the summer of his 27th year, coming home to a place he’d never been before.’ From there, the song took on its own life. It is a celebration of life in The Rocky Mountains. You want to go play up in the talus fields and by the ice cold mountain lakes? ‘Count Me In.'” – Summers Baker
Track Credits: Written by Summers Baker
Photo Credit:Video still by Erik Fellenstein
Video Credits: Videography – Erik Fellenstein Lighting – Payden Widner Mixing – Vermillion Road Studio
Artist:Meadow Mountain Hometown: Denver, Colorado Song: “Waiting for Tomorrow” Album: June Nights Release Date: May 13, 2024 (single)
(Editor’s Note: Over the last few weeks, Colorado-based bluegrass band Meadow Mountain has premiered a series of exclusive, live performance videos of newly releasing tracks. Watch each installment of their SkyTheory Sessions right here, on BGS. The final installment will be released next week.)
In Their Words: “This song attempts to answer the question, ‘What if, instead of starting the band Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl had picked up a mandolin and spent a year exclusively listening to Alison Krauss & Union Station?’ I guess I was doing a lot of thinking and writing about time – the great healer, but also that which brings an end to all things. And then a new beginning. This is a song about time, and hope.” – Jack Dunlevie
Track Credits: Written by Jack Dunlevie
Photo Credit:Video still by Erik Fellenstein
Video Credits: Videography – Erik Fellenstein Lighting – Payden Widner Mixing – Vermillion Road Studio
Artist:Meadow Mountain Hometown: Denver, Colorado Song: “Trail to Telluride” Release Date: May 6, 2024 (single)
(Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, Colorado-based bluegrass band Meadow Mountain will premiere a series of four exclusive, live performance videos of newly releasing tracks. Watch each installment of their SkyTheory Sessions on Thursdays each week for the next three weeks right here, on BGS.)
In Their Words: “I have attended the Telluride Bluegrass festival every year for over 12 years now. It is where I fell in love with bluegrass music and it is where I felt my first calling to write the music of the Rocky Mountains. This song tells a fictional story of a miner in the late 1800s who traveled from Denver to Telluride in an attempt to strike it rich mining for silver. While I am no miner, I do feel that the story tracks with the life of a working musician. You go out there to try something new, and if it doesn’t stick, you reset and get back to work.” – Summers Baker, guitar and songwriter
Track Credits: Written by Summers Baker
Photo Credit:Video still by Erik Fellenstein
Video Credits: Videography – Erik Fellenstein Lighting – Payden Widner Mixing – Vermillion Road Studio
(Editor’s Note: Over the next few weeks, Colorado-based bluegrass band Meadow Mountain will premiere a series of four exclusive, live performance videos of newly releasing tracks. Watch each installment of their SkyTheory Sessions on Thursdays each week for the next four weeks right here, on BGS.)
In Their Words: “It sometimes feels like my life is split up into eras – periods of a year or two that, upon looking back, have a distinct, overarching feeling. As I get older I’ve started to recognize when I’m on the edge of one era, moving into the next one, and I begin to get a sense of the overall color of my recent life. I had that feeling as spring moved into summer last year and wanted to document it in a song. It recounts moments in the Colorado wilderness, misadventures in love, and my abiding wish to be Sam Bush in the 1980’s.” – Jack Dunlevie, mandolin and songwriter
Track Credits: Written by Jack Dunlevie.
Photo Credit:Video still by Erik Fellenstein
Video Credits: Videography – Erik Fellenstein Lighting – Payden Widner Mixing – Vermillion Road Studio
Artist:Frontier Ruckus Hometown: Detroit, Michigan Song: “Clarkston Pasture” Album:On the Northline Release Date: February 16, 2024 Label: Loose Music
In Their Words: “There’s a wonderful tension running through the songs on this album that marks a monumental faultline in my life. I wrote half the songs before I met and fell in love with my now-wife Lauren, and the rest in direct response to that life event – trying to make sense of how I got so lucky (see: “Mercury Sable” and “First Song for Lauren”).
“‘Clarkston Pasture’ was definitely in the former batch. It’s a dead-of-winter, lonesome-as-hell sort of song, where bachelorhood had lost its luster and I was fantasizing about a brighter future full of love and purpose. That’s why the verses are set in these dismally frigid, Michigan-winter landscapes: Cheering on a bar fight, turning off the furnace so as not to waste the warmth on just myself. Then the choruses flash to the glory of a Michigan summer – cruising through the towns on the northern edge of metro Detroit where the subdivisions start to dwindle and the fields start to open up. There aren’t many diametric opposites as stark as a Michigan winter and a Michigan summer, and that polarity turned out to be the perfect metaphor for how love changed my world.” – Matthew Milia
Artist:Hannah Kaminer Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina (technically Black Mountain, North Carolina) Song: “Heavy on the Vine” Album:Heavy on the Vine Release Date: November 17, 2023 (single); January 5, 2024 (album)
In Their Words: “Over the last few years I started gardening and going to the community garden to learn whatever I could. One day in late summer I showed up and the gardener in charge told me we had to take out all the tomatoes and summer plants. I was stunned because all of those plants were still going strong, in full bloom. She gently let me know that it was time: If we did not take the summer plants out, there would be no fall planting and no fall harvest. Pulling the tomatoes out was a spiritual experience – letting go of one thing so another could grow – but it’s a lot harder when it’s not just tomatoes that you have to let go of. This song is about those moments when your vision narrows and you realize that only a few things in life are actually important, and you find yourself bargaining with the universe for the one thing you want but can’t have.” – Hannah Kaminer
Track Credits: Hannah Kaminer – vocals, guitar Kevin Williams – keys Ross Montsinger – drums Melissa Hyman – bass, harmony vocals Jackson Dulaney – pedal steel
Photo Credit: John Dupre Video Credits: Produced by Old Home Place Recordings Director – Aaron Stone Audio Engineer – Mike Johnson Photography – John Dupre Executive Producers – Tim & Susan Griffin
In Their Words: “I couldn’t be more excited to release this brand new one written by my wife Miranda and I. It’s a feel-good song about holding on to the last days of summer with good friends, camping in the mountains, and making everlasting memories with the ones you love. It’s also very special to me, as we recorded it at the late great Steve Gulley’s Pinnacle Studio in Campbell County, Tennessee. Steve was a huge mentor to me as I began getting into the music business, and his engineer/bandmate, Bryan Turner, has since taken over the studio and graciously allowed us to come in and cut this one. It will be the first nationally distributed single recorded there since Steve’s passing in 2020. I hope it brings you back to the mountains and the crisp, late summer air, the songs around a campfire, and the full moon surrounded by stars above. No matter when or where you listen from, I hope Summer Haven will take you into the mountains for a night you’ll never forget.” – Alex Leach
Since the beginning, BGS has sought to showcase roots music at every level and to preserve the moments throughout its ever-developing history that make this music so special. One of the simplest ways we’ve been able to do just that has been through our Sitch Sessions — working with new and old friends, up-and-coming artists, and legendary performers, filming musical moments in small, intimate spaces, among expansive, breathtaking landscapes, and just about everywhere in between. But always aiming to capture the communion of these shared moments.
In honor of our 10th year, we’ve gathered 10 of our best sessions — viral videos and fan favorites — from the past decade. We hope you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane!
Greensky Bluegrass – “Burn Them”
Our most popular video of all time, this Telluride, Colorado session with Greensky Bluegrass is an undeniable favorite, and we just had to include it first.
Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris – “The Traveling Kind”
What more could you ask for than two old friends and legends of country music reminiscing on travels and songs passed and yet to come, in an intimate space like this? “We’re members of an elite group because we’re still around, we’re still traveling,” Emmylou Harris jokes. To which Rodney Crowell adds with a laugh, “We traveled so far, it became a song.” The flowers were even specifically chosen and arranged “to represent a celestial great-beyond and provide a welcoming otherworldly quality … a resting place for the traveling kind.” Another heartwarming touch for an unforgettable moment.
Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan – “Some Tyrant”
In the summer of 2014, during the Telluride Bluegrass Festival we had the distinct pleasure of capturing Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan’s perfectly bucolic version of “Some Tyrant” among the aspens. While out on this jaunt into the woods, we also caught a performance of the loveliest ode to summertime from Kristin Andreassen, joined by Aoife and Sarah.
Rhiannon Giddens – “Mal Hombre”
Rhiannon Giddens once again proves that she can sing just about anything she wants to — and really well — with this gorgeously painful and moving version of “Mal Hombre.”
Tim O’Brien – “You Were on My Mind”
Is this our favorite Sitch Session of all time? Probably. Do we dream of having the good fortune of running into Tim O’Brien playing the banjo on a dusty road outside of Telluride like the truck driver in this video? Definitely.
Enjoy one of our most popular Sitch Sessions of all time, featuring O’Brien’s pure, unfiltered magic in a solo performance of an original, modern classic.
Gregory Alan Isakov – “Saint Valentine”
Being lucky in love is great work, if you can find it. But, for the rest of us, it’s a hard row to hoe. For this 2017 Sitch Session at the York Manor in our home base of Los Angeles, Gregory Alan Isakov teamed up with the Ghost Orchestra to perform “Saint Valentine.”
The Earls of Leicester – “The Train That Carried My Girl From Town”
In this rollicking session, the Earls of Leicester gather round some Ear Trumpet Labs mics to bring their traditional flair to a modern audience, and they all seem to be having a helluva time!
Sara and Sean Watkins – “You and Me”
For this Telluride session, Sara and Sean Watkins toted their fiddle and guitar up the mountain to give us a performance of “You and Me” from a gondola flying high above the canyon.
Punch Brothers – “My Oh My / Boll Weevil”
The Punch Brothers — along with Dawes, The Lone Bellow, and Gregory Alan Isakov — headlined the 2015 LA Bluegrass Situation festival at the Greek Theatre (a party all on its own), and in anticipation, the group shared a performance of “My Oh My” into “Boll Weevil” from on top of the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
Caitlin Canty feat. Noam Pikelny – “I Want To Be With You Always”
We’ll send you off with this delicate moment. Released on Valentine’s Day, Caitlin Canty and Noam Pikelny offered their tender acoustic rendition of Lefty Frizzell’s 1951 country classic love song, “I Want to Be With You Always.”
Dive into 8 of our favorite underrated Sitch Sessions here.
It’s been over nine years since we first boarded the Norwegian Pearl to set sail with some musical friends. Back in 2013, BGS joined the team at Sixthman as well as host band, the Steep Canyon Rangers, on the first Mountain Song at Sea cruise, sailing from Miami to the Bahamas alongside the Punch Brothers, David Grisman, the Del McCoury Band, Tim O’Brien, Della Mae, Bryan Sutton, and Peter Rowan.
You can get a glimpse of the riotous fun that was had onboard that first cruise here.
This month, BGS returns to the high seas on board Sixthman’s Cayamo cruise. While onboard, we’ll be hosting the Party of the Deck-Ade, our kickoff birthday event celebrating ten years of BGS. The jam will be hosted by Sierra Hull and Madison Cunningham, and backed by our house musicians Hogslop String Band.
Get your sunscreen ready, and we hope to see some of you in Miami very soon!
In July we put together a playlist of bluegrass songs for summer vacation and once the inspiration was flowing, it was difficult to stop! We thought we should return to the theme, but slightly zoomed out, to include songs from across the roots music landscape. With the summer still shining, enjoy these 17 folk, Americana, and country songs perfect for your road trip playlist.
“Ride Out in the Country” – Yola
Yola was a 2020 Best New Artist nominee at the Grammys and she’s just returned with a new, full-length album on Easy Eye Sound, Stand For Myself. The entire project is lush and resplendent, like the glory days of orchestral, big-sound country-pop in the ‘60s and ‘70s. For this playlist, though, we return to her prior release, Walk Through Fire, and the perfectly country track, “Ride Out in the Country.” Take the scenic byways and crank the volume!
“I Like It When You’re Home” – Della Mae
One of the nicest silver linings of vacation is missing home – and that delicious feeling of returning to your own space and your own bed after being away. And your loved one(s), too! Della Mae captures that sentiment in this jammy, rootsy track from their album, Headlight. Take the day off, drive north, sit by a lake.
“A Little Past Little Rock” – Lee Ann Womack
A truly quintessential driving song. A must-add even if your vacation route comes nowhere near Arkansas. The baritone guitar intro, the shout-along-with-the-lyrics chorus, the whimsically late ‘90s production. A banger. A bop.
“Sunny and Warm” – Keb’ Mo’
Keb’ Mo’ is a master of vibes. His single “Sunny and Warm” showcases the acoustic blues musician in a more traditional R&B light – and the impact and result are simply golden. This track will have you craving your happy place, wherever that warm and sunny locale may be.
“Heavy Traffic Ahead” – Bill Monroe
Look, we’re The Bluegrass Situation! We’ve gotta get our bluegrass kicks in somewhere – bluegrass is roots music, after all. Given that we left this classic by the Big Mon himself off our Bluegrass Songs for Summer Vacation we felt it was worth inclusion here. And worth a mention so that you’ll go check out the entirely bluegrass playlist, too!
“Country Radio” – Indigo Girls
Finally a country song about country radio – and cruising around aimlessly listening to it – that is enjoyable and free of the guilt associated with the false nostalgia, conservative politics, authenticity signalling, and post-2000s country. Especially the kind most often played on the radio! This Indigo Girls track is testament to all the folks out there who love country music, even if it doesn’t always love them back. Don’t worry, it will. Eventually! (Read the BGS interview.)
“White Noise, White Lines” – Kelsey Waldon
If you catch yourself daydreaming, in a dissociative or meditative trance as you keep it between the lines, Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon has the exact soundtrack for you. “Whie Noise, White Lines,” the title track of her most recent album, speaks to that near-trope-ish phenomenon of losing oneself amid the countless miles traveled while living the life of a traveling musician. Waldon, as in most of her music, accomplishes this motif without stereotypes or clichés, and the result is a song that will be a staple on vacation playlists for decades to come.
“Table For One” – Courtney Marie Andrews
A variation on the same theme, this time from Courtney Marie Andrews, “Table For One” is gauzy and lonesomely trippy. “You don’t wanna be like me / this life ain’t free,” the singer pleads, seeking a sense of reality in a life almost entirely abided within liminal spaces. Find peace in the redwoods, but try to hold on to it. You might lose it twenty miles later.
“Two Roads” – Valerie June
Cosmic and longing, Valerie June distills Kermit the Frog’s “the lovers, the dreamers, and me” into album form with her latest outing, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. Whatever bug you’ve been bitten by – rambling, restlessness, cabin fever, listlessness – let this song and this album scratch that itch. And as you let the miles fade behind you, on whichever of the two roads you take, don’t forget to look up… at the moon and stars and beyond.
“Christine” – Lucy Dacus
Whether or not you’ve experienced the beautiful, transcendent, and heart-rending forbidden love of being queer — on the outside looking in on love that society has constructed to which you’ll never have access — Lucy Dacus’ fantastic, alt/indie roots pop universe will give you a crystalline window into this very particular iteration of unrequited love on “Christine.” The song feels almost as though you’ve woken from a warm, sunny, time-halting afternoon nap in the back seat of a car yourself.
“It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” – Darrell Scott
Darrell Scott goes two for two, landing on both our bluegrass summer vacation round-up and our rootsy list, too! “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” is THE song for the moment you realize you’re out of the office, away from your chores, without a care in the world — whether you have rice cooking in your microwave or not.
“Hometown” – Lula Wiles
For those summers when all you can muster is a trip home. Lula Wiles don’t just trade in nostalgia and hometown praise, though, they take on the subject with a genuine, measured perspective that picks up paradoxes, turns them over, and places them back down for listeners. It’s a subtly charming earworm, too.
“Heavenly Day” – Patty Griffin
“Oh heavenly day / All the clouds blew away / Got no trouble today…” The exact intention to be channeling during vacation! Don’t let your summer getaway be one of those vacations from which you end up needing a vacation. Leave your troubles behind, have a heavenly day.
“Midnight in Harlem” – Tedeschi Trucks Band
Your travels may not bring you even within the same state as Harlem, but this song had still better be on your road trip playlist. There’s almost no song better to put on at midnight, wherever you may be roaming, than Tedeschi Trucks’ “Midnight in Harlem.”
“Outbound Plane” – Suzy Bogguss
Every time I step into an airport my anxiety seems to sing, “I don’t want to be standing here with this ticket for an outbound plane.” It’s always true. This writer has not yet returned to the jetways post-COVID, so we’ll see how that goes. At least there will be the security and comfort of this jam (composed by Nanci Griffith and Tom Russell) from Suzy Bogguss’ heyday.
“455 Rocket” – Kathy Mattea
There are plenty of modern versions of muscle cars available and on the road today, but not a single one is an Oldsmobile 455 Rocket! Kathy Mattea represents the rockabilly/Americana tradition of paeans to automobiles and gearhead culture with this loping tribute to a 455 Rocket, an early cut for Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. If you happen to take your country drives in a muscle car, regardless of brand, this track is for you.
“Take the Journey” – Molly Tuttle
What better way to conclude our playlist than with this always-timely reminder from Molly Tuttle? It might be a cliché, though it really is true: It’s about the journey, not the destination. So take the journey! Enjoy its twists, turns, and be in the moment. And take some clawhammer guitar along with you.
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