Del McCoury

Even among the pantheon of music’s finest artists, Del McCoury stands alone. From the nascent sound of bluegrass that charmed hardscrabble hillbilly honkytonks, rural schoolhouse stages, and the crowning glory of the Grand Ole Opry to the present-day culture-buzz of viral videos and digital streams, Del is the living link. On primetime and late-night television talk shows, there is Del. From headlining sold-out concerts to music festivals of all genres, including one carrying his namesake, there is Del. Where audiences number in the tens of thousands, and admirers as diverse as country-rock icon Steve Earle and jamband royalty Phish count as a few among hundreds, there is Del.

Emerging from humble beginnings in York County, PA nearly eighty years ago, Del was not the likeliest of candidates for legendary status. As a teen, he was captivated by the banjo playing of one of its masters, Earl Scruggs, and decided he’d be a banjo picker, too. The Baltimore/Washington, D.C. bar scene of the early 1960s was lively and rough. Del caught a break. More than a break, really. It was an opportunity of a lifetime; joining Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in early 1963. Considered the Father of Bluegrass, Monroe transformed McCoury, moving him from the banjo to guitar, anointing him lead singer, and providing him with a priceless trove of bluegrass tutelage direct from the source.

Countless hours of recording sessions and miles of tireless touring dotted the decades. Del carried on, and carried with him the hallowed traditions of the form and its dedicated following. The passing years became certificates of authenticity. So, in the sea of grunge and R&B that dominated the music scene of the mid-1990s, it was special, perhaps even startling, to see: There was Del.

Now helming the Del McCoury Band, with sons Ronnie and Rob, the ensemble did and continues to represent in a larger, growing musical community a peerless torchbearer for the entire sweep and scope of bluegrass history. Those many years, not to mention a good-natured willingness to stay alert to the latest sounds and opportunities around him, earned McCoury a whole new generation of fans, including some in unlikely places.

“I’m just doing what’s natural,” says Del. “When young musicians ask me what they should do I always tell them, ‘You do whatever’s inside of you. Do what you do best.’”

No surprise that contemporary, bluegrass-bred stars sang his praises; marquee names like Vince Gill and Alison Krauss (who first met Del at a bluegrass festival when she subbed for his missing fiddler). Yet, here too was rocker Earle recording and touring with the group. Here was Phish jamming onstage with the boys. Here was the band on TV, or headlining rock clubs and college campuses; the can’t-miss appearances at country and jazz festivals. There was Del.

“We don’t have a setlist,” says Del. “We try and work in the new songs, but a lot of times it’s just requests from the audience. It’s more interesting for the band, for me, and for the audience because nobody knows what’s coming next.”

Almost unimaginable, McCoury’s sixth decade in a half-century of bluegrass bliss brings new triumphs, new collaborations, and new music. With but a single change in membership in twenty-seven years The Del McCoury Band shows unprecedented stability as well as garnering the respect and admiration of the industry for its unmistakable work: ten IBMA Entertainer of the Year trophies (most recently in 2024); in 2003, Del’s awarded membership in the cast of the legendary Grand Ole Opry; the band’s first Best Bluegrass Album Grammy award, in ’05, followed by a second Grammy win in 2014, (not to mention double-digit nominations).

“I know (having the same band) helped with my success. It keeps your sound constant,” says Del. “We really enjoy what we’re doing.”

The group traveled with the groundbreaking post-O Brother “Down From The Mountain” tour, and performed with Gill, recording on his Grammy-winning These Days, as well as country sensation Dierks Bentley. In addition to becoming something of a regular at the wildly popular Bonnaroo Music Festival, they’ve also curated and expanded Del’s annual namesake festival.

One of the premier string-band events in the country, the multi-day, multi-stage DelFest showcases the new lions of the genre such as Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Greensky Bluegrass, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Old Crow Medicine Show, and legends like Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, and Bobby Osborne, plus a diversity of artists like Phish frontman Trey Anastasio and blues-rock veterans Gov’t Mule to Americana darlings The Wood Brothers and Rhiannon Giddens.

“DelFest is a great accomplishment,” says Del. “I never thought it would be as successful as it is.”

And, when Sony Music came calling, post-Hurricane Katrina, proposing a collaboration with New Orleans’ revered Preservation Hall Jazz Band, there was Del. If there was ever a collection of recordings confirming McCoury’s wide-ranging impact and spirit of musical comradery, it would be American Legacies. A wonderfully fulfilling cross-section of traditional bluegrass and the Dixieland pomp of New Orleans, the album typified the Del McCoury Band’s evolution from bluegrass vanguard to an American treasure.

“All music is related. Bill Monroe went to New Orleans and listened to jazz players. Earl Scruggs—some of the tunes he recorded were from New Orleans,” says Del. “It all fits together if you’re willing to be open-minded.”

And like any genuine treasure, the gifts keep coming. On their latest release, Songs of Love and Life, a glorious 15-song collection, the album follows 2021’s celebrated, Grammy-nominated release, Almost Proud, and once again features Del touching down on a diverse set of tracks—vintage and contemporary—as he and his crackerjack band nod to icons Kenny Rogers, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley, as well as welcome next-generation talent, Molly Tuttle, to the party. Across his six decades of making classic albums, Del knows what he’s looking for in a song.

“I like a challenge. I’ve always liked a challenge,” says Del. “I like to learn different things. Doing the same things is boring to me.”

One listen and it’s clear as crystal. There is Del.

The Travelin’ McCourys

From a source deep, abundant, and pure the river flows. It’s there on the map, marking place and time. Yet, the river changes as it remains a constant, carving away at the edges, making new pathways, gaining strength as it progresses forward. The Travelin’ McCourys are that river.

The McCoury brothers—Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo)—were born into the bluegrass tradition. Talk about a source abundant and pure: their father, Del, is among the most influential and successful musicians in the history of the genre. Years on the road with Dad in the Del McCoury Band honed their knife-edge chops, and encouraged the duo to imagine how traditional bluegrass could cut innovative pathways into 21st century music.

“If you put your mind, your skills, and your ability to it, I think you can make just about anything work on bluegrass instruments,” says Ronnie. “That’s a really fun part of this—figuring the new stuff out and surprising the audience.”

With fiddler Jason Carter, bassist Alan Bartram, and latest recruit Cody Kilby on guitar, they assembled a group that could take what they had in their DNA, take what traditions they learned and heard, and push the music forward. In fact, the band became the only group to have each of its members recognized with an International Bluegrass Music Association Award for their instrument at least once. There were peers, too, that could see bluegrass as both historic and progressive. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Allman Brothers Band, improv-rock kings Phish, and jamband contemporary Keller Williams were just a few that formed a mutual admiration society with the ensemble.

The band played the Allman’s Wanee Festival, and guitarist Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam—an annual holiday homecoming of Southern music. An early-years jam with the Lee Boys was hailed by many as the highlight of the evening, and with the video catching fire online, earned a legion of new, young fans of their supercharged combination of sacred steel, R&B, and bluegrass. There were unforgettable collaborations with country smash Dierks Bentley, and onstage magic, jamming with titans String Cheese Incident and Phish, cutting an album with Keller (Pick), and creating the Grateful Ball—a tribute concert-turned-tour bridging bluegrass with the iconic music of the Grateful Dead.

“That’s something that’s part of us being who we are,” says Ronnie. “It comes, too, with us plugging in. It gets louder, for sure. We can’t be another version of our dad’s band. It wouldn’t make any sense for us to do that.”

Their concerts became can’t-miss events, whether headlining historic venues or as festival favorites, drawing the love and respect of a growing fanbase craving their eclectic repertoire. At the 2016 edition of DelFest, an annual gathering of the genre’s best aptly named for the McCoury patriarch, the band delivered the take-away highlight. Rolling Stone called it “a sublime combination of rock and bluegrass, contemporary and classic, old and young. The best set of the festival…” The river was going new places, getting stronger. It was time to re-draw the map.

“We’ve tried to pick songs we think people are going to enjoy,” says Ronnie. “Something we learned from our dad is that a good song is a good song. It can be done in any way.”

So arrives the long-awaited, self-titled debut album from the quintet. A brilliantly executed set overflowing with inventive style, stellar musicianship, and, of course, plenty of burnin’ grass, the 14-song collection is a true culmination of their decades-long journey. From the headwaters of Bill Monroe and the waves of Jerry Garcia to a sound both rooted and revolutionary, soulful and transcending that belongs only to the Travelin’ McCourys.

“The album definitely shows what we’ve evolved into as a band. And, it’s a pretty good representation of what’s happening with the whole genre,” says Rob. “The old bluegrass material is something I love but it’s been done many times. We’re forging ahead with our own sound. That’s what you have to do to make it all work.”

Jerry Douglas Band

Dobro master and 16-time Grammy winner Jerry Douglas is a bandleader, producer, session musician, instructor, and a very funny guy! He’s produced over a hundred albums and he’s featured on over 1,600 studio albums. He’s a member of Alison Kraus & Union Station, co-bandleader for Transatlantic Sessions in the United Kingdom, founder for the Grammy winner bluegrass super-group The Earls of Leicester, and he leads The Jerry Douglas Band.

Since 2017, The Jerry Douglas Band has been forging new paths into the musical horizon with deep roots in bluegrass and folk that spreads out into the Americana and jazz landscapes. In 2021, The Jerry Douglas Band released an album, Leftover Feelings, with legendary singer songwriter John Hiatt. The album was nominated for a 2022 Grammy for “Best Americana Album,” and their previous record What If also received a Grammy nomination for “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.” They perform at some of the top US festivals such as Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Pilgrimage Music Festival, Big Ears Festival, DelFest, FreshGrass, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Merlefest, and many others. In addition to Douglas, The Jerry Douglas Band includes Daniel Kimbro on bass, Christian Sedelmyer on fiddle, and Mike Seal on guitar.

Daniel Kimbro
Raised on American Roots music in and around Appalachia, Daniel Kimbro is a multi Grammy-nominated bassist with numerous stage and studio appearances to his credit. Currently touring and recording with The Jerry Douglas Band, The Earls of Leicester, the Transatlantic Sessions and many others, Daniel utilizes his extensive experience within Jazz, Folk and Bluegrass genres to maintain a busy freelance career from his twin homes of Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee.

Christian Sedelmyer

Christian Sedelmyer is a daring and diversified musician who brings a 21st-century vision to the five-string violin. Raised in Erie, PA and based in Nashville since 2008, he’s been a member of the Jerry Douglas Band since Summer of 2014. In addition, he’s forged two successful bands (The Farewell Drifters and 10 String Symphony) and become a valued side musician and collaborator in contemporary string band music. Sedelmyer contributed to the IBMA Award winning 2018 Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year. He regularly collaborates and records with Andrew Marlin (Watchhouse), and his debut solo instrumental album, Ravine Palace, featuring Douglas, Marlin, Eli West (guitar) and Clint Mullican (bass) was released in 2020.

Mike Seal
Mike Seal is a twice grammy-nominated guitarist and composer based in Nashville, TN. Originally from Bridgewater, Virginia, Mike has been touring and recording with a wide variety of bands including: The Jerry Douglas Band, Sierra Hull, Bob Lanzetti, Viktor Kraus Band Jeff Sipe Trio, Sarah Siskind, Danny Barnes, The Jeff Coffin Mu-tet, Ike Stubblefield, Yonrico Scott, Keith L. Brown, The Black Lillies, and many others. Mike’s first solo EP, Dogwoods, released in 2018 and is available on Spotify and other streaming services.

David “Dawg” Grisman

David Grisman emerged as a mandolin visionary from New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s. He first played with local bluegrass bands and then professionally with the Even Dozen Jug Band, Red Allen and the Kentuckians and Earth Opera. He became a record producer and session player on recordings with Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt and many others. In 1969, Jerry Garcia invited David to play on the Grateful Dead’s classic American Beauty. Garcia famously dubbed him “Dawg” and their musical friendship led to the legendary bluegrass band, Old & In The Way.

Dawg unleashed an acoustic musical revolution with his 1977 release — The David Grisman Quintet, forging a ground-breaking style rooted in high-energy bluegrass, interlaced with elements of jazz and world music. The Quintet showcased dawg music for four decades with its renowned members — Tony Rice, Darol Anger, Todd Phillips, Mike Marshall, Mark O’Connor, Joe Craven, Enrique Coria, Matt Eakle, Jim Kerwin, John Carlini, George Marsh, Frank Vignola and others. David also maintained a formidable traditional bluegrass presence with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience.

In 1990 David founded Acoustic Disc, producing over 100 projects featuring collaborations with Jerry Garcia, Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Stephane Grappelli, John Hartford, Mike Seeger, Andy Statman, Vassar Clements, Martin Taylor, John Sebastian, Tommy Emmanuel and others, as well as historically important recordings by Dave Apollon, Jacob Do Bandolim, Oscar Aleman, Svend Asmussen and Bill Monroe.

Today his Dawg Trio offers a fresh new crop of dawg tunes featuring songster Danny Barnes (banjo & guitar) and David’s son Samson Grisman (bass). Five decades after their first show together, Grisman still performs with his old friend, bluegrass icon Del McCoury. David Grisman is now known worldwide for his melodious mandolin style, compositional ingenuity and the inspired performances of the groups he continues to lead.

Sierra Hull

In her first 25 years alone, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Sierra Hull hit more milestones than many musicians accomplish in a lifetime. After making her Grand Ole Opry debut at the age of 10, the Tennessee-bred virtuoso mandolinist played Carnegie Hall at age 12, then landed a deal with Rounder Records just a year later. Now 28-years-old, Hull is set to deliver her fourth full- length for Rounder: an elegantly inventive and endlessly captivating album called 25 Trips.

Revealing her profound warmth as a storyteller, 25 Trips finds Hull shedding light on the beauty and chaos and sometimes sorrow of growing up and getting older. To that end, the album’s title nods to a particularly momentous year of her life, including her marriage to fellow bluegrass musician Justin Moses and the release of her widely acclaimed album Weighted Mind—a Béla Fleck- produced effort nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards.

“There’s a lot of push-and-pull on this record, where in some moments I feel like everything’s happening so fast and I wish I could slow it all down so I can really enjoy it,” Hull points out. “But then there are also times where I’m looking forward to the day when the craziness has died down a bit, and life’s a little calmer.”

Made with producer/engineer Shani Gandhi (Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley, Sarah Jarosz, Alison Krauss), 25 Trips continues the musical journey begun on Weighted Mind, a body of work that built off Hull’s bluegrass roots and ventured into entirely new terrain. But while its predecessor assumed a sparse and stripped-back palette, 25 Trips embodies a far more intricately arranged sound—an effect achieved with the help of peers like guitarist Mike Seal, bassist Ethan Jodziewicz, violinist Alex Hargreaves, and fiddler Christian Sedelmyer, as well as several musicians that Hull has long admired (including bassist Viktor Krauss, guitarist Bryan Sutton, and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Duncan). Along with integrating electric instrumentation and percussion into her material for the first time, Hull dreamed up the album’s eclectic textures by embracing a free-flowing process that often gave way to lightning-in-a-bottle improvisation.

“There were some songs that we created from the ground up, where I’d go in and play by myself, and from there we’d bring in other musicians to add more and more layers,” Hull says. “It was really wonderful to work that way, where we started from a place of mystery and then just let the song show us what it wanted or needed to become.”

Immediately proving the power of that approach, 25 Trips lures the listener into its unpredictable sonic world on the beguiling opening track “Beautifully Out of Place.” With its shifting tempos and gently tempestuous mood, the song was sparked from words of encouragement spoken by Hull’s husband at a time of self-doubt and confusion. “I remember Justin saying to me, ‘I believe in you, so you’re just going to have to learn to believe in yourself,’” she recalls. “That inspired the first line for me, and the song just wrote itself from there.”

Although much of the album bears a rich complexity, 25 Trips also includes moments of stark simplicity that perfectly showcase Hull’s stunning vocal range. On “Everybody’s Talking,” for instance, her luminous vocals quietly capture the frustration of finding clarity in the midst of constant chatter from the outside world. And on “Ceiling to the Floor”—co-written with Kai Welch, a songwriter/musician known for his work with Glen Campbell and Abigail Washburn—Hull spins a tender metaphor from her longtime fear of heights. “I was telling Kai about how when I was little my dad used to try to get me over that fear by holding me up to the ceiling and saying, ‘Just touch it—I’m not gonna let you fall,’” she explains. Featuring a performance from legendary steel-guitar player Paul Franklin, “Ceiling to the Floor” drifts from memory to real-time reflection, slowly unfolding as a nuanced meditation on courage and love.

One of the most unexpected turns on 25 Trips, “Escape” emerges as a delicate collage of hypnotic percussion, otherworldly electric-mandolin tones, and poetic yet plainspoken lyrics (e.g., “I want to escape to a world that’s not closing in”). “I didn’t even have that song on my list for the album, but I played Shani a voice memo and right away she said, ‘I wanna record that,’” remembers Hull, who penned “Escape” with singer/songwriter Angel Snow. “I was a little hesitant since it’s so unlike anything else I’ve done, but in the end it was really exciting to play electric and come up with something in a completely different vein.”

In closing out 25 Trips, Hull shares an especially poignant track titled “Father Time.” “I wrote that song with Mindy Smith after spending a week with my husband and his grandma, after his grandpa had a stroke on Christmas morning,” she says. “His grandma had suffered with Alzheimer’s for years and couldn’t really stay by herself, and through that experience I decided to write about watching my husband take such good care of her, and how that made me love him even more.” With its heavy-hearted melody and choir-like harmonies, “Father Time” shows Hull’s effortless finesse in embedding her music with so many subtle details (including an instrumental reference to “Jingle Bells” tucked into the second verse). “We had our instruments with us at Christmas, so at some point we played ‘Jingle Bells’ for my husband’s grandma,” says Hull. “She can’t remember my name or Justin’s name now, but for some reason ‘Jingle Bells’ stuck, and she still asks for it year- round—it’s the most amazing thing.”

Even as its songs continually shift in genre, encompassing everything from bluegrass to folk-pop to ethereal alt-rock, 25 Trips remains rooted in the sophisticated musicianship that Hull has cultivated almost her entire life. Hailing from the tiny Tennessee hamlet of Byrdstown, she learned to sing from her mother as toddler, took up mandolin just a few years later, and began joining in local bluegrass jams by the young age of eight. With her childhood triumphs including joining her hero and mentor Alison Krauss onstage at the Grand Ole Opry at age 11, she made her Rounder debut with the 2008 album Secrets and promptly garnered the first of many nominations for Mandolin Player of the Year at the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. In 2016, after a near- decade of consecutive nominations, Hull became the first-ever woman to win the award—then claimed that prize again at the 2017 and 2018 IBMAs. Over the years, Hull has also maintained a rigorous touring schedule, and has made occasional guest appearances with such icons as the Indigo Girls, Garth Brooks, and Gillian Welch.

Marking a bold new era in Hull’s artistic evolution, 25 Trips wholly channels the pure and palpable joy she discovered in the album’s creation—and ultimately illuminates certain truths about the indelible connection between risk-taking and reward. “One of the things I most enjoyed about making this record was getting to show the wide variety of music I love,” says Hull. “I don’t really know what category the album falls in, but I also think that matters less and less. What really matters to me is trusting myself to be who I am, and just putting my voice and my heart out there in the most sincere way that I possibly can.”

Rob Ickes

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area, Rob Ickes (rhymes with “bikes”) comes from a musical family. His grandparents played old-time fiddle music, and Rob trained his young musical ear at their weekly jam sessions. Although his family wanted Rob to play fiddle, the instrument didn’t interest him. Then, at the age of thirteen, Rob was exposed to the Dobro playing of Mike Auldridge, and the sound immediately caught his attention. Soon after, Rob got his first Dobro, and he has been playing music ever since.

Rob moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined Blue Highway, the highly esteemed bluegrass band, as a founding member in 1994. He is recognized as one of the most innovative Dobro players on the scene today, contributing signature technique and greatly expanding the boundaries of the instrument’s sonic and stylistic territory. He won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Dobro Player of the Year award for a record-setting fifteenth time in 2013; IBMA notes that he is the most awarded instrumentalist in the history of the IBMA awards.

As an active session player and touring musician, he has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including Charlie Haden, Merle Haggard, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, David Lee Roth, Dolly Parton, Patty Loveless, Peter Rowan, Claire Lynch, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The youngest dobro player on The Great Dobro Sessions (Jerry Douglas & Tut Taylor, producers), which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, he was also on the Alison Krauss & The Cox Family album, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, which won the 1994 Grammy for Best Southern Gospel. His most recent release is a dobro-piano jazz album, Road Song (ResoRevolution 2009); he has also released four acclaimed solo albums on Rounder, eight albums with Blue Highway (Rounder, Ceili, Rebel) and a self-titled CD with Three Ring Circle, comprising Rob, Andy Leftwich and Dave Pomeroy (Earwave).

In 2015 Rob left Blue Highway to pursue other musical projects. Rob’s latest project is with singer/guitarist Trey Hensley. Starting full time in 2016, the duo has performed throughout the US, Europe and also Australia. Their first recording, “Before the Sun Goes Down,” was nominated for a Grammy in 2016.

Rob is also a gifted resonator guitar teacher; in 2007, he founded ResoSummit, a three-day annual instructional event in Nashville, featuring leading Dobro players and luthiers as faculty.

Justin Moses

Marty Stuart

In a career spanning over 50 years, dozens of albums, and too many shows to count, Marty Stuart still charts a course through new territory at every chance possible. Joined by his longtime band The Fabulous Superlatives, the five-time GRAMMY® Award winner, Country Music Hall of Famer, Congress of Country Music Founder and AMA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient cruises into another stratosphere with his first-ever full-length instrumental LP, Space Junk. The inimitable interplay between Marty, Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson, and Chris Scruggs fuels this cosmic cowboy trip with sun-kissed surf guitar, breezy California rhythms, soul-stirring steel guitar, and fluid fretwork all-around.

“We thought the world needed a fresh instrumental album by a pretty good band,” laughs Stuart. “So we composed twenty instrumentals and took them to the microphones.”

Space Junk sounds like country music’s preeminent band crash landing on a Malibu beach and performing the most epic jam you’ve ever witnessed by starlight…

“Instrumentals have always been a part of the Fabulous Superlatives’ repertoire, but this is the first completely instrumental album we’ve done,” Stuart says, “largely inspired by two of my favorite bands from the sixties, The Ventures and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. They did some dangerously cool instrumental records. We’ve done bluegrass, gospel, and country records. Our hearts just led us to this one. Space Junk turned us back into kids with our first guitars.” Ironically, the cover art of Space Junk is a painting by Stuart’s longtime hero and pal, Herb Alpert, who generously consented for use as part of this project.

Stuart’s deeper understanding of the instrumental form can actually be traced to the turn of the century. Marty took a year off from touring to focus on composing music for film and television. He notably scored All The Pretty Horses, garnering a Golden Globe® nomination for “Best Original Score” and earning GRAMMY® Awards in the category of “Best Country Instrumental Performance” for “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “Hummingbyrd.” The experience proved pivotal.

“Scoring required a cinematic way of thinking,” reveals Marty. “I had to make music for what the scene called for, which turned me into more of a visual player in an understated way. That kind of thinking followed me into the studio during the making of Space Junk. I knew the music had to be pretty, but it also had to say something without losing its drive.”

He and The Superlatives ventured to Hollywood and cut the bulk of what would become Space Junk at the legendary Capitol Recording Studios. The palm trees, sunshine, and energy of the world-famous room most definitely set the mood for the boys to blast off.

“Just walking in, you feel the weight of that room’s history,” Chris observes. “You can’t help but think of The Beach Boys, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, and Buck Owens walking down that ramp. It lifts you up and helps you take flight.”

“A place like Capitol makes you want to dress up and perform your best,” grins Harry.

“I started listening to rock ‘n’ roll before The Beatles came out,” Kenny chuckles. “There’s a mystique to Capitol; it’s still there too.”

“The creative atmosphere of California always gives me a feeling that the sky is the limit,” Marty muses. “Space Junk is California music. If you want a specific sound, you go to certain places in the world. For the California sound, it’s Capitol. You’ve got the blue skies, the legacy, the romance, and a lot of friendly ghosts. The atmosphere makes you do a little better.”

“California Part 1 (Bobbie Gentry Please Call Home)” channels this spirit. Captured live at Capitol, Marty played Clarence White’s famous Fender Telecaster guitar on this song. The dusty beat holds down a steady groove as a lyrical lead swoons and swerves towards an upbeat crescendo accented by pinch harmonics.

“It winks at me, because it’s purely California,” Marty goes on. “I close my eyes and see a Western sunset. Clarence played really softly. There was a magic bell tone to what he did. I finally found that tone on his guitar on this song.”

A dramatic drumroll gives way to ethereal guitar transmissions on “The Ballad of the Lonely Surfer.” Organic percussion quakes beneath delicately strummed chords. “I had a vague idea of the melody for a ballad,” recalls Kenny. “It fell right into place once I took it to the band.”

“Waiting on Sundown” alternates between tender low-string twang and echoes of sustained notes awash in waves of reverb. “The song is clearly under the spell of my romance with the Golden State,” Marty confesses. “It’s a reflection of the music, rhinestone fashion of Lankershim Boulevard, cars, the TV and movie heroes. In reality, it’s a love affair with the entirety of the landscape of California custom culture.”

The finale “Waltz of the Waves” revolves around a steel symphony performed with panache and poise by Chris. “Back in the day, the steel players were stars,” Chris adds. “I wanted to do a song with that voice. There are elements of exotica and Hawaiian music too, which is dear to me. You can say a lot without words and just music.”

“To me, ‘Waltz of the Waves’ is the moment you get in the rowboat, let the sun go down, and float off into the sunset,” Marty continues. “It was the perfect way to close the novel.”

The guys recorded just a handful of tracks in Nashville. Among those, “Graveyard” hinges on a quintessential surf guitar riff ushered forward by a dynamic beat and fast tremolo. “We recorded at the House of Blues studio,” Marty remembers. “Right behind it, there’s a big graveyard where people like George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Marty Robbins, and Porter Wagoner are buried. The title worked.”

Then, there’s “Space Junk.” Steel drums thump, galactic chimes wail, and the guitar practically sings. It immediately evokes a big screen-worthy vignette topped off by a sample of the Sputnik signal. Kenny elaborates, “Sonically, it’s like you’re sitting in the window seat of a spacecraft and you’re seeing all of this stuff just drift on by.”

Over twenty years together and unparalleled musicianship enabled Marty and The Superlatives to reach such impressive heights. Often cited among the scene’s most elite players, the musicians leaned into their chemistry, conversing at a subconscious level after all of this time. “Each band member is a lifer, and we’ve all got a little bit of the frontman gene,” Chris reveals. “A connection to music is part of who we are.”

“Also, none of us has ever had a job other than music,” laughs Kenny.

“Harry and I made records in the nineties,” Marty remarks. “I saw Kenny for the first time at Austin City Limits with Lucinda Williams, and I knew he could do it all. The three of us have known Chris since he was a little guy, and there’s no end to his musical chain. These guys are all producers. When we get together, it’s a masterclass in music and fun. After our very first rehearsal, I remember saying, ‘This isn’t your ordinary band. We’re called at a deeper level.’ It’s about standing and living for something, playing good music, and trying to make a difference.”

Marty’s light has only gotten brighter over the years. He has left an indelible mark on successive eras of country music and culture. He went from accompanying Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash to launching a storied solo career highlighted by classic albums such as the Gold-certified Hillbilly Rock and Platinum-certified This One’s Gonna Hurt You, as well as GRAMMY® Award-winning anthems, including “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’” [with Travis Tritt] and “Same Old Train.” Recently, 2023’s Altitude incited widespread critical applause. Of the latter, Associated Press applauded how, “Guitarist Kenny Vaughan, drummer Harry Stinson and bassist Chris Scruggs match Stuart’s guitar virtuosity, with thrilling results,” and American Songwriter attested, “Altitude finds Stuart putting his own stamp on a traditional vein of country.” NPR put it best: “For millions, Marty Stuart is the very image of country music—splendid jackets, musical mastery and his respect for country’s traditions and a good jolt of humor.” You’d be hard pressed to find a corner of country music he hasn’t impacted. Speaking to his influence, he hosted the long-running fan favorite television series The Marty Stuart Show and notably remains a member of the Country Music Foundation and Grand Ole Opry. Moreover, the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 2020. He also curated and launched Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music in Philadelphia, MS, preserving and celebrating the genre and its history.

Ultimately, Space Junk is another natural step for Marty and a worthy addition to his essential catalog.

“I hope Space Junk takes the listeners for a ride,” he leaves off. “It makes me forget my problems and remember why I play guitar and get to dress up in cowboy clothes. It reminds me I’m okay, and I want it to do the same for you. Mainly, I want to inspire some kid to go to the store, buy an instrument, and make a difference. This concept was passed down to us from the old heroes. If we can serve the same role, mission accomplished.”

Bryan Sutton

“I’ve come and gone and rambled far, still finding notes on this guitar,” sings Bryan Sutton in the truth-telling title track to his new album, The More I Learn. It was the right choice, summing up Sutton’s approach to his remarkable career. “The more I learn/the more I learn/that I’ve sure got a lot more to learn.”

This is a musician who could assume from the acclaim that’s followed him for more than 20 years that he’s the one who knows it all. But that would be incompatible with his character, and it wouldn’t have enabled him become the fully rounded, always improving musician that he strives to be.

Since he arrived in Nashville in the mid ‘90s, Sutton has been a young phenom, a trusted sideman, a sought-after studio instrumentalist, and a solo recording artist. On The More I Learn, he asserts himself as a songwriter and auteur in his own right – one who has assimilated wide-ranging influences in American roots music, and distilled them into something strong and personal. It’s the sound and approach he’ll be carrying forward as leader of his own band.

“It’s a manifestation of years of wanting to write more and sing more,” says Sutton. “I put doing this off for a lot of years, choosing to be busy with other things. My journey has been playing for a lot of other people but feeling like I had more I wanted to do.”

Sutton had been writing original instrumentals on his guitar for years, and it’s extraordinary to be around him when he’s riffing and improvising on the fretboard. Lately, those spontaneous licks began inspiring lyrics and verses and choruses. And after being around the songwriting culture of Nashville for years, as well as his current run with bluegrass band Hot Rize, Sutton found himself figuring out what he wanted to say, and what kind of songwriter he wanted to be.

He says: “I’m dealing with some of the issues a lot of folks deal with early in their career, which is trying not to write somebody else’s song, and trying to be honest and learning to trust what’s inside me.”

Longtime fans will be gratified that these explorations have only drawn him closer to the mountain music and bluegrass on which he was raised. But this is, after all, an artist who once titled a solo album Not Too Far From The Tree. “I’m not trying to write modern bluegrass,” he says (with all due respect to modern bluegrass, of which he has played a lot). “I’m influenced by a lot of things, but at end of day (my music is) close to the ground. I like to listen to songs that grab me on a base emotion.”

Sutton’s name rippled through the world of bluegrass music when he started playing guitar with Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder in 1995. He was in his early 20s, fresh out of his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, and he could play with finesse and speed, but with enough power and dynamics to be heard clearly over the big Skaggs band. Soon, his musicianship began showing up on studio albums by country stars, iconic projects including Dolly Parton’s The Grass Is Blue album and key acoustic music projects such as Béla Fleck’s Acoustic Planet tour, when Sutton was called on to sub for his hero, guitarist Tony Rice.

While he juggled various studio and road commitments, Sutton made a string of guitar albums that solidified his stature as a preeminent instrumental recording artist and a leading figure in the evolution of bluegrass music. One highlight of many was winning a Grammy Award for a duet with North Carolina flatpicking icon Doc Watson. Every album had a story, and every song had a reason to be included.

The most recent major chapter of Sutton’s career has been his inclusion in Hot Rize, the legendary band that defined the bluegrass scene in Colorado in the 1980s. Now reconfigured, with Sutton replacing the late, great Charles Sawtelle, Hot Rize is writing original music again, which helped jumpstart Sutton’s interest in songwriting.

“We had some writing weekends together, which was a really good catalyst for my own process,” Sutton says. “You get on a thread and follow to its end. My writing started with the prep for (2015’s Western Skies album), and it really started taking off. Prior to that I’d never set aside whole days to write, and I started doing that.”

Sutton tracked his new collection of songs at Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studio in Nashville, which has become a refuge for roots musicians searching for a comfortable space and the in-house engineering mastery of Brandon Bell (Dierks Bentley, Sarah Jarosz). It was quickly decided that the industry standard approach of recording in isolation booths was wrong for this project. The musicians got back into the big room in a circle, just as they’d run the songs in rehearsal, and it worked much better as complete takes with no chances to fix things. “You accept some warts and some things that are slightly ragged around certain edges, but it all feels very real,” says Sutton. “I feel like I’ve tried to get to a point where I believe what’s in me, and I want to make that real for a listener.”

One such song is “Hills For The Head,” which ties the spirit of his Appalachian Mountain home to the Rocky Mountain magic of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where Sutton is a member of the famed “house band” with longtime colleagues Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Béla Fleck. He performs this one on the album as a solo with voice and guitar, but there are fine self-penned band songs as well. A Hot Rize writing session led to the brisk and tuneful “Walking Across This Land,” performed with fellow Hot Rizer Tim O’Brien singing harmony.

Several songs, including the romantic original “Play Me A Record,” and the Bob Dylan cover “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” are set with a spare instrumentation of one other guitar (Punch Brother Chris Eldridge) and bass (Samson Grisman), a configuration inspired by Doc Watson’s Southbound album, one of Sutton’s lifelong favorites. “I just think that’s a killer sounding record. It always takes me to a place I need to go,” he says. “It’s Doc doing a lot of fancy picking, but it’s not trying too hard. So if I am doing things that are a little more rhythmic or a little more brushy, that’s me trying to keep things from being too intricate – being satisfied with a good groove and a good tone on the guitar.”

Even with this new focus on vocals, the guitar remains prominent. In some cases, his intricate figures frame the songs, as with the ingratiating intro to “The More I Learn, while the pure instrumentals take us through various chapters of Sutton’s life. There’s a solo take on “Arkansas Traveler,” a traditional tune Bryan’s been flatpicking since he first learned how. The glowing, honest production takes us eight inches from Sutton’s picking hand and guitar top for a mesmerizing performance. New instrumentals worked up with full band treatment include the Irish-tinged “Virginia Creeper.” A melody inspired by the climbing, winding vine of that name is traded among Sutton, Noam Pikelny’s banjo, Casey Campbell’s mandolin, and Mike Barnett’s fiddle.

As a mountain musician from the bluegrass tradition, Sutton is esteemed in the school of American guitar that includes Doc Watson, Norman Blake, and Tony Rice. As a Nashville picker who loves finding something fresh to contribute in the studio for a variety of artists, he’s become an heir to the A-Team legacy of Chet Atkins, Hank Garland, and Ray Edenton. There’s even a strong case to be made that Sutton has injected a lot more bluegrass and traditional sensibility into the Music Row environment than would have been there without him. Sutton is certainly a lifelong learner, but we’d be naïve not to recognize how much he’s taught us.

Molly Tuttle

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway—her brand new band of bluegrass virtuosos featuring mandolinist Dominick Leslie, banjoist Kyle Tuttle, fiddle player Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and bassist Shelby Means—will tour the United States in 2022 in support of Tuttle’s forthcoming Nonesuch Records debut.

An award-winning guitarist and songwriter, native Californian Molly Tuttle continues to push her songwriting in new directions and transcend musical boundaries. Since moving to Nashville in 2015, she has worked with many of her peers and heroes in the Americana, folk, and bluegrass communities, winning Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards. Tuttle’s 2019 debut album, When You’re Ready, received critical acclaim, with NPR Music praising its “handsomely crafted melodies that gently insinuate themselves into the memory,” and the Wall Street Journal lauding Tuttle’s “genre-boundary-crossing comfort and emotional preparedness,” calling the record an “invigorating, mature and attention-grabbing first album.”

Tuttle’s accolades also include Folk Alliance International’s honor for Song of the Year for “You Didn’t Call My Name,” from her 2017 Rise EP, and consecutive trophies for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year; she was the first woman in the history of the IBMA to win that honor.

During the pandemic, Tuttle recorded a covers album, …but i’d rather be with you, which was released in August 2020. The record, which features guest vocals from Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, includes songs by musicians ranging from FKA Twigs to Cat Stevens, Rancid to Karen Dalton, and The National to The Rolling Stones. The New Yorker’s Jay Ruttenberg, in praising her rendition of the Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow,” says: “In Tuttle’s reading, the song uses a bluegrass spirit to look to the past—and a feminist allegiance to peek at the future.”

Sara Watkins

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