Variety Show

Folks, I’ve just returned from two remarkable days at our sister show Bluegrass Underground, watching the team shoot the show’s second season for PBS. I’ll write more about this soon, but for now suffice it to say that I was overwhelmed and moved by the experience. Todd, John and company assembled a top-of-the-world lineup and staged a pristine looking and sounding festival in the under-world, and I saw performances by the Del McCoury Band, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, The Civil Wars, Sarah Jarosz and the Time Jumpers that I’ll never forget. Our own host Jim Lauderdale played a magnificent acoustic set that also happened to be the funniest of the weekend. No surprise there.

Heavy Wood

I have a musical secret. As much as I love and cherish folk, blues and bluegrass, at my core, I’m a jazzbo. If I really was going to be abandoned on that proverbial desert island, I’d have more jazz than anything. And because I really value modern music and innovation, I’ve become a devoted fan of Medeski, Martin & Wood, a trio that’s enjoyed inspiring commercial success for a strictly instrumental and improvisational band. A lot of folks in the rootsy community have caught on to these guys over the years, and certain jamgrass bands are likely to have shared stages and audiences with MMW, who have a certain roots sensibility themselves. Keyboardist John Medeski had a side band once with Robert Randolph (pedal-steel genius) and the North Mississippi All-Stars, and I’d like to formally propose a reunion of that band on Music City Roots. Any time guys.

Better Angels

I love twang, train beats and banjers as much as anyone, so it’s cool to have Bakersfield school country troubadour Dave Gleason and the wild-a## bluegrass of The Cleverlys coming back to the Loveless stage for our Feb 15 show. But as I looked at our lineup for the week, I was particularly excited to see that in one show, we’ll be treated two of the most distinctive and intelligent female artists emerging in the US right now. Angel Snow and Samantha Crain won’t be categorized or cornered. One may tend to the elegant and the other to the earthy, but I believe both of them to be truly state of the art.

Crossing County Lines

After a week heavy on tradition and four visions of gradual change at our Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America night (see HERE for details), we felt the need to once again celebrate the transgressive and the progressive – to roll the dice and see what happens with some bands famous for hopping over fences and scaring a few folks even as they delight a hell of a lot more.