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Name: The Grascals
Group: The Grascals
Date: Saturday March 27th, 2010
Time: 10:30pm EST
Website: www.grascals.com
Interviewer: Gracie Muldoon
Description:
The Grascals are among the most beloved and acclaimed bands on today’s bluegrass scene, having won the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year award in 2005 and earning its Entertainer of the Year honor in both 2006 and 2007. They take another stride forward with The Famous Lefty Flynn’s, their fourth album, available March 30, 2010 on Rounder Records. Vocally, the trio of Terry Eldredge, Jamie Johnson, and Terry Smith are tighter than ever, cutting loose on driving solo vocals and soaring trios with equal fire and passion. As an instrumental unit, The Grascals have never sounded sharper, with mandolin ace Danny Roberts, fiddler Jeremy Abshire, and new banjo player Kristin Scott Benson leading the charge. As a result, The Famous Lefty Flynn’s features cutting-edge modern bluegrass delivered with a deep knowledge of and admiration for the work of the music’s founding fathers. Timely yet timeless, The Grascals make music that is entirely relevant to the here and now, yet immersed in traditional values of soul and musicianship. It’s a unique sound that has earned two of their previous releases, The Grascals (2005) and Long List of Heartaches (2006) Grammy® nominations for Best Bluegrass Album.
Great musicians will always find a way to make good music, but for great musicians to make great music, they must find a bond – one that more often than not goes beyond the purely musical to the personal. For The Grascals, that bond has been forged at the intersection of personal friendships, shared professional resumes and an appreciation for the innovative mingling of bluegrass and country music that has been a hallmark of the Nashville scene for more than forty years. As their previous three releases prove, whether they’re digging into one of their original songs or instrumentals, reworking a bluegrass classic, or interpreting a pop standard, like the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” The Grascals’ rare musical empathy gives them an unerring ear for just the right touch to illuminate each offering’s deepest spirit.
For those who know them, the quick emergence of the group came as no surprise, for these are musicians whose roots and crossed paths reach back over more than two decades in bluegrass ensembles like the Osborne Brothers, Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, the Sidemen and New Tradition. Their roots can also be traced back to Nashville’s larger musical community, where the Grascals have been able to draw on legends like Bobby Osborne, George Jones, Vince Gill, the Jordanaires, Steve Wariner, Lloyd Green, Paul Craft and others for songs and for performances in the studio, on stage (including multiple guest appearances on the Grand Ole Opry), and for national television appearances, including on The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, CBS’s Early Show and Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends. Thanks to those experiences and those friendships, The Grascals embody a profound grasp of and familiarity with country and bluegrass tradition that made them a natural choice for Dolly Parton to turn to for recording and tour support not long after the group was created.
The Famous Lefty Flynn’s kicks off with start-to-finish three-part harmonies featured in a rousing cover of “Last Train to Clarksville.” The energy doesn’t let up as Terry Eldredge takes the lead in the infectious, fast-paced “Son of a Sawmill Man” – a straight-ahead bluegrass tune with room for solos by Kristin Scott Benson (banjo), Danny Roberts (mandolin), and Jeremy Abshire (fiddle). The ballad “Satan and Grandma” follows, a powerful testimony to the strength of a righteous grandmother conveyed with perfect emotion by Jamie Johnson.
The life-affirming “Everytime” features Terry Eldredge, and reminds us of new possibilities and adventures that could be just ahead. Like an old-time folk song, “Out Comes the Sun” paints a mysterious, foreboding picture of a lover. Terry Eldredge, with the help of a bass interlude by Terry Smith, sets just the right chilling mood with this one. The instrumental “Blue Rock Slide” keeps that old-time bluegrass spirit front and center – in a more upbeat way – with solos and instrumental interplay in abundance.
The title track, written by Jamie Johnson and Morry Trent, is a story song, an outlaw’s tale, delivered convincingly by Terry Eldredge. Another Grascals original, “My Baby’s Waiting on the Other Side” (Johnson, Smith, Roberts) with Jamie Johnson singing lead, is a barn-burner, fueled by precise three-part harmony and solos on fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin. Steve Earle’s “My Old Friend the Blues” follows with its easy-going irony. The bluesy spirit continues with the two Terrys joining Jamie for the choruses of the wistful but sprightly “Up This Hill and Down.”
Guest vocalist Hank Williams Jr. joins the Grascals for a quintessential country/bluegrass version of “I’m Blue I’m Lonesome,” written by his dad, Hank Williams, and the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe. To close out the album, Jamie Johnson sings lead in the uplifting “Give Me Jesus.” |
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