Editor’s Note: BGS is excited to partner with AEA Ribbon Mics to share special live sessions shot during AmericanaFest at Bell Tone Recording in Nashville, Tennessee. The series will feature a variety of performers and Americana artists, a small selection of which will premiere weekly here on BGS. We’re proud to kick off the AEA Sessions with longtime friend of the Bluegrass Situation, the one-and-only Gaby Moreno performing three songs from her new album, Dusk, released in February of this year.
Artist:Gaby Moreno Hometown: Los Angeles, California Songs: “New Dawn,” “Solid Ground,” and “Luna de Xelajú”
In Their Words: “It was a wonderful experience performing a few songs for AEA at Bell Tone during AmericanaFest. The sound quality and the energy in the room were unforgettable.” – Gaby Moreno
“Gaby is charismatic and energetic. She lights up a room when she walks in and when she performs, it’s electrifying.” – Julie Tan, AEA Ribbon Mics
Gaby is using the AEA R44CX for vocals and the AEA R92 on her amp. To purchase these or other AEA gear, please contact your local dealer. More information is available at AEARibbonMics.com. See the full series of AEA Sessions shot live during AmericanaFest by subscribing to AEA Ribbon Mics on YouTube.
Video Credits: Audio – Brandon Bell Audio Assistant – Annie Petrik Video – Michael Perlmutter Host – Julie Tan Filmed at Bell Tone Recording, Nashville.
For his second Yamaha Session, Schneider picks up his Yamaha FS9 R acoustic guitar to perform “Don’t Look Down,” an original song from his 2022 album, Best Be On My Way. While the studio version features Schneider’s longtime friend, Liv Greene, the track certainly shines solo in this context, as well.
Gentle fingerstyle picking gives way to tender vocals, text painting a long-suffering image with an ultimately hopeful tinge. It’s a song about keeping your chin up, literally and figuratively. Written during the turmoil of the pandemic, the message in the lyrics is certainly not one of toxic positivity, making the moral within them even more resonant. It’s easy to tell Schneider is not just speaking to his listeners, but also to himself.
The chorus listens like a mantra, its repetitions of “Don’t look down/ Don’t look down at the gravel on the road…” reinforcing that moving forward, one foot in front of the other, is an active process and not a passive one.
For a special bonus edition of our DelFest Sessions from earlier this year, we return to Cumberland, Maryland and the banks of the Potomac River for an encore performance by bluegrass four-piece, Mountain Grass Unit. On September 20, the group will release a brand new EP, Runnin’ From Trouble, which features this original number, “Lonesome Dove,” as the lead track. In fact, at the time of the session’s taping, the band had just recorded the song a week prior.
“We had an amazing time at the riverside DelFest Session performing our new song, ‘Lonesome Dove,'” said mandolinist Drury Anderson via email. “Watching people float down the river while we recorded made the experience even more special. It was an honor to be part of such a unique series!”
Watch two more songs from the band’s DelFest Sessions performance here. “Lonesome Dove” demonstrates a charming tinge of darkness from the tune’s minor chords. It’s built around a driving groove that leans forward into a bright tempo that belies the song’s longing undercurrents. Festival goers watch from their hammocks in the trees and their inner tubes on the river as the band gallops through the properly lonesome song.
Runnin’ From Trouble is the buzzworthy group’s first EP release since 2023, as they build momentum and gain fans and followers touring the country and playing many popular bluegrass and roots music festivals, like DelFest.
“Each of the five tracks explores different elements of our favorite types of music, all tied together by a bluegrass influence,” bassist Sam Wilson continued. “The hope is to give every type of listener something they can enjoy.”
Guitarist Luke Black also chimed in: “After a lot of hard work we’re excited to see how listeners connect with the variety of tunes we’ve created.”
Runnin’ From Trouble from Mountain Grass Unit drops Friday, September 20.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should Drone Footage: Christopher Weist Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
Our Yamaha Sessions continue, highlighting the top-notch Yamaha FG series of acoustic guitars and the killer musicians who utilize them. This time, we’re back with guitarist, singer-songwriter, GRAMMY nominee, and reigning IBMA Guitar Player of the Year Trey Hensley. For his second session in the series, he performs a growling original, “Can’t Outrun the Blues,” that highlights the grit and attack of his custom Yamaha FG9 R, resonant and bold in open E.
Hensley’s techniques are bluegrass through and through, with clarity and athleticism to his flatpicking that stand out even among his incredibly talented contemporaries. The ‘grassy skeletal structure behind his approach to the instrument is merely a springboard into other textures and styles. Here, in a modal and bluesy number, you can certainly hear the influence rock and roll, down home and contemporary blues, Southern rock, and country chicken pickin’ have on Hensley’s own writing and composition.
The full-throated, warm, and flush sound of his Yamaha guitar follows Hensley as he toggles seamlessly between Tony Rice vocabularies, modern blues licks, and even a fiddle tune melody interpolated toward the end of the performance. Just like his voice on the six-string, Hensley’s vocals – like a combo of Merle Haggard, Larry Sparks, and Randy Travis – are just as comfortable shapeshifting between genres and styles in realtime. It’s melting pot Americana at its best, even with just one voice, one instrument, and one original song.
Our Yamaha Sessions will continue with a final installment, featuring Jack Schneider, coming soon to BGS!
Today, our Yamaha Sessions continue with a gorgeous and tender performance from guitarist, producer, and singer-songwriter Jack Schneider. Best known for his road gig with Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill, Schneider released his debut album, Best Be On My Way, to critical acclaim in 2022. The project features Gill, David Rawlings, Stuart Duncan, and more collaborating on Schneider’s vintage-tinged original songs, each dripping with the styles and sonics of ’60s and ’70s troubadours and Americana poets. His latest single, “When the Saints,” is a delicious, shuffling folk-rock ballad with deeply stacked vocal tracks and retro trappings that was released in late July.
For his Yamaha Sessions performance, Schneider chose “Gulf of Mexico,” another original – that is as yet unrecorded and unreleased – which showcases the warm, full, and deep sound of Schneider’s Yamaha FS9 R acoustic guitar. Resonant and rich, the drop D tuning accentuates the melancholy evident in the timelessly constructed song. A bright spruce top and sultry rosewood back and sides add up to a guitar that’s equally at home in folk and Americana as bluegrass and flatpicking. Schneider pulls excellent tone from the instrument, with impeccable intonation and confident touch whether picking or strumming.
Ultimately, the guitar shines first and foremost as a complement to Schneider’s thoughtful and romantic writing, rising to the occasion of the lyric and its textures. Listeners can sense the respect and adoration Schneider holds for his picking and songwriting heroes – folks like Gill, James Taylor, John Denver, John Prine, and many more – in the way he carries on the age old tradition of country-folk literature in song.
Stay tuned, as our Yamaha Sessions will continue in just a couple of weeks right here, on BGS.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon just outside of Nashville, Tennessee earlier this summer, BGS linked up with award-winning guitarist, songwriter, and jaw-dropping flatpicker Trey Hensley to kick off a new series of Yamaha Sessions. Hensley, a GRAMMY nominee and the reigning IBMA Guitar Player of the year, pulled his custom Yamaha FG9 R out of its road case to shred through a cover of a classic Jimmy Martin number, “Hold What You Got.”
Hensley is a picture perfect modern demonstration of how bluegrass trailblazers, like Martin, blurred the lines between country, old-time, bluegrass, and beyond. His voice reminds of honeyed country singers like Randy Travis, while his blisteringly quick picking and remarkable articulation are built on Tony Rice and Clarence White building blocks – but simultaneously, those techniques are as forward-looking and contemporary as his peers, Billy Strings, Jake Workman, and others. Hensley pulls limitless tone and warmness from his Yamaha FG9 R, even while approaching the song with near-aggression, ripping through acrobatic triplet licks and leaning into ugly delicious chromaticism in every solo.
It’s a three-minute, bold and energetic bluegrass ride, “Hold What You Got” as only Trey Hensley could render it – complete with references to J.D. Crowe’s iconic banjo licks from the original cut. Punctuated with a bluesy and full open E chord, Hensley closed out the first of two new, exclusive Yamaha Sessions we’ll share from the guitarist over the coming weeks. Next, we’ll debut a track performed by Jack Schneider to continue the series. Stay tuned!
We are so excited to unveil the final installment of our DelFest Sessions, featuring Grammy-nominated bluegrass supergroup Sister Sadie. Over the course of the Memorial Day festival in Cumberland, Maryland, BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should shot a half dozen superlative live performances on the gorgeous banks of the Potomac River. From festival hosts the Travelin’ McCourys, Big Richard, and Wood Belly to East Nash Grass, Mountain Grass Unit, and now the Sadies, each edition of our DelFest Sessions has been an audio swatch of the incredible national string band scene we all adore.
With a raucous “WOO!” shouted to the festival-goers floating by in their inner tubes and kayaks on the river, Sister Sadie stepped up to the mics to deliver two gentle, burning, emotive tracks pulled from their critically-acclaimed album, No Fear, which was released earlier this year. The first, “Blue As My Broken Heart,” was written by Dani Flowers – who sings lead on the number – with co-writers Victoria Banks and Rachel Proctor. Evocative imagery and detailed text painting here feel more than appropriate for the setting, in the verdant foothills of Appalachia on the cusp of spring and summer. You can almost feel the blue sky above and you can certainly grasp, immediately, why this group is up for eight IBMA Awards this year – including Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year.
For their second selection, Female Vocalist of the Year nominee Jaelee Roberts renders “One’s Real Life,” a song she penned that stays within the decidedly bluegrass theme of heartbreak and longing. With a vocal trio rounded out by Flowers and banjoist Gena Britt – who is nominated for Banjo Player of the Year – they sing, “One’s a photo and one is real life/ Oh it hurts to know which one is right…”
All at once these lyrics bring to mind idiomatic songs in the bluegrass and roots canon – like Hazel Dickens’ “Just A Few Old Memories” and Guy Clark’s “My Favorite Picture of You” – as well as more mainstream string bands like The Chicks and Alison Krauss & Union Station. Sister Sadie combine it all, from Music Row songwriters and crisp and clean Nashville sounds to the grit and drive of straight ahead bluegrass and old-time. To wit, No Fear includes tracks written by country stars Cam (“Diane”) and Ashley McBryde (“Willow”).
Whatever the setting, from the Grand Ole Opry to the shady banks of the Potomac River, Sister Sadie shine. Thanks to the band, including Roberts, Flowers, Britt, Deanie Richardson, Maddie Dalton, and Tristan Scroggins, for taking the time. We couldn’t think of a better way to close our DelFest Sessions out.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this series of live performance videos – check out the full batch of impeccable songs by first-rate DelFest bands here. Special thanks to Brad Wagner and Juan Soria of I Know We Should, to Christopher Weist for the beautiful drone footage, to Ariel Rosemberg for production assistance, curation, and coordination, and to DelFest for their hospitality.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should Drone Footage: Christopher Weist Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
Our second-to-last installment of our DelFest Sessions features Birmingham, Alabama-based jamgrass group, Mountain Grass Unit. Videographers I Know We Should were on hand at this year’s DelFest in Cumberland, Maryland over Memorial Day Weekend to capture a collection of beautiful, fun, and engaging live sessions on the banks of the Potomac River. (See all of our DelFest Sessions here.) For their shoot, Mountain Grass Unit played a pair of exciting cover songs.
Their first selection, “Big River,” is a funky and charming re-imagination of a Johnny Cash classic with a mash-tastic, blues-inflected groove. Drury Anderson, the group’s mandolin picker and lead vocalist on the track, sings with a drawl seemingly from right down the proverbial road from Cash’s homeland (near Memphis, Tennessee). It fits the bluesy undertones of their rendition perfectly, equal parts Muscle Shoals and Bean Blossom. Cash is a common cover subject in bluegrass, and MGU’s version of “Big River” demonstrates exactly why that’s the case.
For their second number, fiddler Josiah Nelson kicks off “One Way Track,” a Ricky Skaggs cover that’s a blistering and fun throwback. As the mist rises over the Appalachian foothills of Maryland and West Virginia, Luke Black (guitar) and Sam Wilson (bass) jump in on harmony vocals on a chorus with a chord progression built on pop changes and mountain music’s lonesome tones.
DelFest campers watch from their hammocks in the shade as Mountain Grass Unit charge down their “One Way Track” with runaway locomotive energy. Ricky Skaggs, who co-wrote the song with Wes Golding, may have released its most popular version, but it was originally cut by Boone Creek, a bluegrass supergroup of the ’70s and ’80s that included Skaggs, Golding, Jerry Douglas, and the late Terry Baucom. Still, MGU hold their own and leave their unique fingerprints on the track.
Stay tuned, as we’ll have one more DelFest Session coming your way next week. Plus, Mountain Grass Unit may have shot an additional, bonus track from their upcoming EP that we’re excited to share with you at a later date. It will all be right here, on BGS! More to come…
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should Drone Footage: Christopher Weist Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
Our DelFest Sessions continue this week with East Nash Grass, as we relive the iconic Memorial Day weekend festival and return to the banks of the Potomac River for another stellar live performance. In the shade on the river’s banks, BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should captured a high-quality handful of sessions with artists and bands from the DelFest lineup.
This time, we’re featuring an multiple IBMA Award-nominated band known for their long-running East Nashville residencies and their critically-acclaimed 2023 album, Last Chance to Win – from which they pulled their first selection, “Papa’s on the Housetop.” It’s a slinky and bluesy track that demonstrates just a few of the many styles synthesized and metamorphosed into bluegrass by these cracking players.
Featuring Harry Clark (mandolin), Maddie Denton (fiddle), James Kee (guitar), Gaven Largent (Dobro), Jeff Partin (bass), and Cory Walker (banjo), whether at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Nashville or on festival and venue stages around the country, this group is known for their party-level energy and charming-while-awkward old school stage patter. “Papa’s on the Housetop” is almost a kind of mission statement for this incredibly fun and carrousing lineup. Based on the reaction of the impromptu audience gathered for the live taping, this DelFest Session really felt like a party in person, too.
For their second song, Denton steps to the mic to sing “Following You,” a number that reminds of classic era Alison Krauss & Union Station with a mellow vibe and a forward-leaning tempo. While the lead vocal lays back, languid, on the verses, the chorus turns the chord progression on its ear and showcases three-part harmonies over beautiful changes.
East Nash Grass may be known for being barn burners and delightfully unpredictable entertainers, but “Following You” – as both of their full-length studio recordings – shows this talented roster of artists and musicians have limitless range and access to plenty of nuance, whatever the context or style. Humorous or earnest – or both! – East Nash Grass have so much to offer the bluegrass and string band scenes.
Stay tuned, as our DelFest Sessions series will continue next week, right here on BGS.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should Drone Footage: Christopher Weist Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
Our series of DelFest Sessions continues with our third installment, featuring Colorado-based bluegrassy string band, Wood Belly. BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should were on hand for the Memorial Day Weekend festival earlier this year to capture exclusive live performances from artists and bands on the lineup on the beautiful banks of the Potomac River.
For their first song, Wood Belly perform “Alamosa Rain,” a track from their 2023 album, Cicada, that highlights all of the musical and stylistic growth the band has enjoyed since they won the band contest at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2018. This is a group with decidedly bluegrass bones, but with a Telecaster and drum kit in the lineup and a song with plenty of pop sensibilities and a folk-rock pocket, it’s easy to tell how Wood Belly can feel right at home whether among traditional bluegrass acts, jam bands, Americana outfits, or many others.
“Alamosa Rain,” an original co-written by the entire band – including Dylan French, Brennan Mackey, Aaron McCloskey, Chris Weist, and Chris Zink – is clearly grown directly from Wood Belly’s Colorado roots. It’s a perfect song for summer, for a long drive flanked by the Rocky Mountains, for pointing your headlights down the highway toward the next town, the next gig, or the next festival.
But, that’s not all, as McCloskey sets down the Tele to pick up his banjo and Mackey steps up to the mic to sing the band’s second selection, “Cry Cry Cry” – also from Cicada. They stay in the groove, lounging in the pocket while leaning forward with the current, like the DelFest-goers lazily floating by behind them on the river in the summer heat.
In the shady understory on the verdant Allegany County Fairgrounds, Wood Belly sing about better luck, about looking up at the stars through satellites, about love and sadness and the essence of life. All while the small gathering of onlookers surely reflect on their own great luck at getting to witness the behind the scenes magic of capturing our DelFest Sessions.
Stay tuned, as our series continues next week, right here on BGS.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should Drone Footage: Christopher Weist Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
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