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Several top Contemporary Christian Music artists and bluegrass artists — including Steven Curtis Chapman, Brandon Heath and Darin & Brooke Aldridge — are teaming up to aid people in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee who have been impacted by the destruction of Hurricane Helene.
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On Nov. 14, the benefit concert Mountain Aid: Music for Healing, Strength for Tomorrow will feature Chapman, Heath, Point of Grace, Jason Crabb, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, musician/humorist Sean Dietrich (Sean of the South), The Jason Lovins Band, TaRanda Greene and event organizers Chosen Road. The event will be held at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tennessee.
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All proceeds from the concert will benefit the aid organization Samaritan’s Purse. Mountain Aid: Music for Healing, Strength for Tomorrow” is presented by Food City in affiliation with IMC Concerts and the city of Johnson City, Tenn. Tickets are $20 (with children ages 2 and under admitted free).
“Chosen Road is thrilled to help bring Mountain Aid to life,” Chosen Road co-founder Jonathan Buckner said in a statement. “When we heard how many of our friends and neighbors in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee were affected, we knew we had to take action. Our dear friends in the Jason Lovins Band agreed, and they stepped up in a special way to help make this event possible. We’re so grateful for their support, as well as for all the amazing artists who are graciously lending their time and talents for a night to remember. These mountains and the people who call them home have shaped our music and we owe so much to them. Our prayer is that Mountain Aid will not only help raise funds and bring hope for those in need but will, most importantly, make an eternal impact in Appalachia.” “Point of Grace is so grateful to be part of Mountain Aid,” added Point of Grace member Shelley Breen. “The images we have seen are beyond heartbreaking, and we will not forget the victims as they try to rebuild their lives. Lending our voices to encourage and raise funds for them is truly an honor. We are praying even now for a huge turnout of support for these precious souls who have lost so much.”
The music community has stepped up in a significant way in the wake of Hurricane Helene, with artists including Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, R.E.M., Jason Isbell and Metallica helping in various ways to aid those impacted, while Luke Combs, Eric Church, James Taylor, Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow and Billy Strings spearheaded a concert over the weekendin North Carolina, which raised over $24 million to help with hurricane relief efforts.
When Hurricane Helene flooded the streets of Asheville, N.C., it forced the postponement of a Sept. 30 Gangstagrass show at The Orange Peel.
As a result, the band — a genre-busting hybrid of bluegrass and hip-hop — revised its itinerary and spent the previous night in Atlanta, creating a dinner menu of grilled salmon, beef, asparagus, mushrooms and sweet potatoes.
Despite the daunting weather and travel issues, the band was in a congenial mood. Just a week earlier, its new album, The Blackest Thing on the Menu, became its second project to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart dated Sept. 28. The act’s previous No. 1, 2020’s No Time for Enemies, was the first atop the chart to feature two MCs. Neither No. 1 was originally on the career menu.
“It’s not like it was a goal from the start, or anything on the agenda,” founder Rench says. “Our aim is to make great music, put out our message and play awesome shows. Billboard charts aren’t really a part of that. It’s just kind of gravy on the mashed potatoes.”
The first Gangstagrass No. 1 occurred during the pandemic, and the members told themselves it was a fluky representation of their pent-up fan base’s support.
“Doing it again,” MC R-SON says now, “that’s extra special.”
So was the timing: It occurred as the International Bluegrass Music Association held its IBMA Awards and conference in Raleigh, N.C. Gangstagrass decidedly tests the boundaries of the genre. It fires up the traditional banjo and fiddle with unexpected beats and raps, fusing the sound of rural Kentucky with the music of urban New York.
On paper, the mixture probably shouldn’t work. But Gangstagrass is built on a belief that folks who ride tractors have more in common with people who ride the subway than might be expected. Bluegrass and hip-hop both represent working-class cultures, and both rely heavily on the music’s pulse, be it a rolling banjo or a syncopated drum machine.
“If you have poor folks anywhere, they’re telling their stories, and they’re building from that,” R-SON says. “It works better than people would ever have imagined, just because a lot of their existences are similar.”
Rench didn’t necessarily recognize that when he launched Gangstagrass as a studio experiment in 2006 from his home in Brooklyn. He made it available for free online, and the reaction quickly exceeded his expectations.
“It was getting downloaded so much, it was crashing the site, and so I could see that people really liked it,” Rench says. “I knew then that putting together a live band to actually do this, with instrumentalists, would take it in a much bigger direction.”
Adding to the plot, producers for the FX series Justified enlisted Gangstagrass for a theme song, “Long Hard Times To Come,” in 2010. The group’s diverse musical origins appealed to an eclectic audience, too, bringing together seemingly incompatible constituencies.
“We got little kids, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college kids, their parents, their parents’ parents, their parents’ parents’ parents,” MC Dolio the Sleuth says.
“We have New York hipsters, we have proud rednecks from Texas,” Rench adds. “It really is like kind of a little bit of everything.”
The fan base also includes some of the band’s professional peers. Dobro icon Jerry Douglas, who joined the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Sept. 26, appears on “The Only Way Out Is Through,” the lead track on The Blackest Thing on the Menu. Dan Tyminski, the lead singer on The Soggy Bottom Boys’ “Man of Constant Sorrow,” joined Gangstagrass to perform that song at the end of the IBMA’s 2022 convention.
“The best players and these bluegrass legends, they really get it,” Rench says. “The bluegrass purists that are skeptical [of] us really don’t have much to stand on when they see all their favorite bluegrass players backing us up.”
Gangstagrass likely reflects larger cultural trends. Beyoncè’s Cowboy Carter debuted at No. 1 on Top Country Albums earlier this year. And Vice President Kamala Harris is the first female candidate of color to run for president on a major-party ticket. Polls and analysts suggest she has a good chance of winning. The Gangstagrass audience portends a possible future where people of disparate backgrounds can increasingly find commonality.
“We can see how crucial it will be for people to not be afraid of each other,” Rench says. “There’s a difference between being different and being divided, and if we can get them to not be divided and to be comfortable with each other and understand that they’re part of the same citizenship of the earth and of the country, that’s a huge step forward.”
That’s an ambitious goal, but one that’s delivered with a good helping of joy. The new album features a song, “Mother,” that explores economic disparities and a foreboding environmental outlook, but it’s followed by “Obligatory Braggadocio,” a comical self-celebration — “I got big wheels on my big truck” — over a rowdy Southern rock musical bed.
Even the album’s title is the result of an inside joke that stems from fiddler B.E. Farrow asking a waiter, “What’s the blackest thing on the menu?” When Rench suggested the title months later, the band broke into laughter, then grew quiet. The Blackest Thing on the Menu made a statement about the band.
“I kid you not,” Dolio says. “Two rainbows shot out from the sky, a double rainbow — double rainbow — right in front of us over New York City.”
It was a development as unlikely — and as hopeful — as the band itself.
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Billy Strings’ Highway Prayers arrives at No. 1 on Billboard’s all-genre Top Album Sales survey dated Oct. 12.
The set also launches at No. 1 on Bluegrass Albums, marking the first time that bluegrass has boasted the top-selling album among all genres in 22 years. The O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack spent two weeks at No. 1 on Top Album Sales in March 2002. It also ruled Bluegrass Albums for 15 weeks.
Highway Prayers, which includes 20 songs, sold 19,000 – Strings’ biggest career sales week – in the United States in its first week (Sept. 27-Oct. 3), according to Luminate.
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The 32-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Lansing, Mich., now based in the Nashville area, leads Top Album Sales for the first time following three top 10s: Live, Vol. 1 entered at its No. 5 high on the chart dated July 27 with 15,000 sold; Me/And/Dad started at its No. 5 peak in December 2022 with 16,000 sold (his previous high mark); and Renewal began at its No. 7 best in October 2021 (8,000). He posted his initial appearance in October 2019 as Home entered at its No. 34 peak.
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With Highway Prayers, Strings (born William Apostol) earns his fifth leader among eight top 10s on Bluegrass Albums.
Simultaneously, the LP — which Strings produced with Jon Brion — arrives at No. 8 Top Country Albums, awarding Strings his third top 10. The set starts with 24,000 equivalent album units, the largest consumption week of his career. The collection also opens at No. 6 on Americana/Folk Albums, marking his fourth top 10.
Currently on tour, Strings makes his next stop Oct. 11 in Indianapolis.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates to May 25, 1991, when Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units.
For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
In the late ‘90s, shortly after graduating high school, Timothy Trudeau was already making his mark in music, launching his multi-faceted company Syntax. He worked in production and songwriting, working with nu metal band P.O.D. on pre-production in Syntax’s studio, and producing Tonex’s song “Dancing in the Son” on his 02 album for Jive Records. Other artists Trudeau has worked with include Man of War, Kaboose, Grits, and Nappy Roots (handling drum programming for their song “Right Now,” featured on the 2005 Daredevil soundtrack). He also performed as part of the group Sackcloth Fashion.
His journey as a creative and businessperson largely centered on Christian hip-hop, a niche scene that nonetheless was close to his heart and a lifelong passion to that point.
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“I was a big fan of Christian hip hop growing up, and so I was already kind of well immersed in that space,” Syntax Creative CEO/founder Trudeau says of his early entryway into music. “I was putting beats on a cassette and mailing them to folks. I would go to shows and I drove up one time to L.A. and gave a beat tape to [rapper] Pigeon John, who later ended up putting his first record out [Is Clueless] on our record label [via The Telephone Company/Syntax Records]. I was just trying to get anyone I could to take a listen, and if nothing else, give feedback, tell me what they thought.”
By 2004, Syntax Creative was officially incorporated and has since evolved into a top independent music distributor and marketing agency, representing the exclusive global rights to over 150 record labels. Syntax began in the physical retail distribution space, but Trudeau could see where things were heading, and early on Syntax was already negotiating direct deals with organizations including Apple iTunes, as well as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and later Spotify.
“When we finally decided to go all the way digital, it was just about waiting for some of the other aspects of the industry to catch up with that,” he says. “We used to have to pay all these extra fees and surcharges for shipping and return fees and those kinds of things—so by the time the listener would buy a CD for $16.98 plus tax, we’d be already $30 into that record, and physical distribution in CDs was the loss leader back then.”
Syntax earned its reputation working in Trudeau’s strong suit of Christian hip-hop. But he soon had a realization. “What we quickly realized was what works for one niche works in another one just the same,” he says. “We figured out that what we did for a hip-hop record worked for a bluegrass record as well.”
In 2008, Syntax began to branch out, bringing on clients like Bluegrass/Americana label Crossroads Label Group, which introduced Syntax Creative into the bluegrass space. Crossroads Label Group is home to labels including Mountain Home Music Company and Organic Records (and music from artists Kristin Scott Benson, The Grascals, Tray Wellington and Sister Sadie); Old Bear Records (Andrew Greer, Kevin Max); Man-do-lin Records (Ronnie Reno); and Frontline Records (12th Tribe), among many others. In 2009, the company doubled the size of its catalog from the previous year.
A decade later, the company relocated from California to Nashville, as many of their clients were already based in Tennessee, and picked up Dark Shadow Recording (Becky Buller, Man About a Horse). Earlier this year, Syntax added more clients in Gray Artist Services, 403 Music and Sound Biscuit. They also teamed with Christian music and entertainment site NewReleaseToday’s label NRT Music, to provide marketing and digital distribution for the label, and teamed with Blue Flower Records and folk duo The Gray Havens. Syntax has also continued further building its reputation in the bluegrass space through its partnership with Rebel Records, the 64-year-old label whose catalog of over 4,800 songs includes music from Larry Sparks, Ralph Stanley, Del McCoury and Bill Emerson.
Syntax offers a differentiating factor in that it not only distributes music but offers a range of services including marketing, royalty consolidation and label services. While artists today have a range of social media outlets at their disposal, he’s found that every genre, from mainstream pop to more niche genres has benefited from TikTok.
“If artists only have enough time for one, it should be TikTok, because really all the people are doing right now anyway, is there, and then they go over and just post the same video at another [social media] network,” he says.
Even with all the controversy surrounding the money artists and songwriters make (or don’t make) from streaming, Trudeau says he advises artists to look at the role of DSPs differently.
“I feel like a lot of these DSPs get a bad rap because I think the artists have now looked to the DSPs and they think, ‘We’re in the music business. I need all my income to come from Spotify,’” he says. “And it’s like, ‘What if Spotify was the loss leader?’ That’s one thing we’re always trying to work with our artists on — you’re not in the Spotify business or you’re not in the CD business, you’re in the music business. So how can we monetize everything around it in a way where you can actually do this full-time or even part-time?”
Trudeau, who has served on both Dove Awards and Grammy screening committees and is an active board member of the Music Business Association, has also led educational tracks for conferences including Music Biz, Gospel Music Association, Flavor Fest and more.
“We’ve had a lot of fun helping the labels and the artists that we work with on just practical things that they can do that will help their careers, and help increase their revenue,” Trudeau says.
The best advice I received is: One thing that stood out to me early on was the person who picks up the phone, and the person who sends the email, those are the ones that things happen for them. Maybe they get told ‘No’ 99 times, but then the 100th time, they get told yes.
I would tell people coming up in this industry: The live show is still number one—that’s a way to connect that I still think a phone and social networks will never be able to replace. And those people that were at those smaller, beginning shows, they will follow them all the way. They will be the ones buying the VIP stuff—not that you can’t convert someone who came into it later, but those early fans are often really invested.
In my job, it’s good to have: I’ve never really been one to overreact or get too heated up. It seems like that’s served me well. Being calm, even when things are crazy, has helped a ton. Working with people—we have 150 record labels and that’s a lot to juggle. You get people calling if they are going through something or need advice because they know I’m going to be rational and not overreact.
As the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual IBMA Week launches in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jerry Douglas is among the storied honorees: The 30-time IBMA Award recipient will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Thursday (Sept. 26) by fellow bluegrass luminary and 2023 honoree Sam Bush.
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Over the course of nearly five decades, Douglas’s contributions and influence on genres including bluegrass, country and Americana have been indelible, thanks to his masterful, pioneering musicianship on the dobro, as well as his work as a producer (on more than 100 albums), bandleader, and songwriter.
“It’s not something you expect,” Douglas, 67, tells Billboard of the induction. “I was shocked, surprised, and humbled, all those things. It’s the acceptance that’s really cool about it, being accepted in a place along with Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs [both members of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1991]. You don’t think about your name being mentioned in the same paragraph as those guys, but sometimes it happens.”
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The Bluegrass Hall of Fame honor isn’t the only award he could take home Thursday evening: he’s nominated in other three IBMA categories, including album of the year (for co-producing Tuttle’s City of Gold), resophonic guitar player of the year and collaborative recording of the year (for Authentic Unlimited with Jerry Douglas’ Fall in Tennessee).
The induction comes a week after his Sept. 20-released new album The Set (out on Nolivian Records), marking the 16-time Grammy winner’s first album in seven years.
Together with his Jerry Douglas Band cohorts — Mike Seal (guitar), Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) and Daniel Kimbro (bass) — Douglas offers up reimaginations of six beloved older songs alongside five new compositions. The album takes its name from Douglas’ intent to capture more of the essence of the group’s live shows.
The songs on The Set span decades and styles, such as “From Ankara to Izmir,” which Douglas had previously included on his 1987 album Changing Channels.
“When I cut the song, I envisioned it as a different thing,” he says. “When you write a song and record it soon after, you don’t really know that song. It takes on different features and becomes something different than it started as. I originally cut it with lap steel and made it tougher sounding. Later on, I started playing it on dobro instead. Now, it’s a combination of electric guitar, bass, dobro, upright bass, and fiddle. It covers all the bases, but we have space in there, too.”
The lead single from The Set is a rendition of The Beatles’ 1968 song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Songs written by each bandmember are also featured including Sedelmyer’s “Deacon Waltz,” Kimbro’s “Loyston,” and Seal’s “Renee.”
“This is a band record. Everybody had a hand in it,” Douglas says. “I may have picked the songs and produced it, but everybody’s personality and music are on the record.”
Ohio native Douglas moved to Music City in 1978, initially to play for the country vocal group The Whites. He released his first solo album, Fluxology, a year later. His first Grammy nomination came in 1982 for his work on The Whites’ album You Put the Blue in Me.
“I moved to Nashville at a good time,” he recalls. “It was right after what we called ‘The Urban Cowboy Scare,’ when everyone had a mechanical bull and bruises. But when I got to Nashville, Ricky [Skaggs] broke out and Emmylou [Harris] and Randy Travis and all these traditional artists and I was playing so many of those records and dobro was on radio.”
His musical dexterity made Douglas an in-demand session musician; he’s played on over 1,500 albums including projects for George Jones, Garth Brooks, Paul Simon, Emmylou Harris, Sierra Ferrell, Dierks Bentley and James Taylor. He’s earned the Country Music Association Awards’ musician of the year honor three times.
He’s also seen the ebbs and flows of music emanating from Nashville — for better and for worse. “The music is cyclical and here in Nashville I’ve seen it turn over three or four times. The last one was the bro-country movement, which is finally dead, thank God. It resides along with disco in hell somewhere. Now we’ve entered a totally new [time] where so many people are coming from different genres to country music.”
Over the decades, in addition to serving as band leader for his own group and the Grammy-winning The Earls of Leicester, he played as part of The Country Gentlemen while still a teen and has been part of bands including Boone Creek and J.D. Crowe and The New South (his work with the group earned Douglas his first Grammy win). He’s been a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station since 1998 and earned a wellspring of attention thanks to his work on the RIAA-certified eight-time multi-platinum soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
Along the way, Douglas says he’s gleaned wisdom in the finer points of pulling together a group that heightens the musicians’ individual strengths.
“It’s all in the cocktail. How does this person support this other person? And that’s what it’s all about in a band — support. You can’t be practicing your next solo while someone else is soloing. I’ve seen that happen onstage. The cardinal rule is to listen to who’s playing before you. Listen to everything that’s going on around you, because you can pull all those things together and go in different directions. Just things you pick up along the way, like J.D. Crowe, when he would sing, he did not play, and then he would play coming out of that [singing] and that was like he’d just signed his name.”
Elsewhere on The Set, with “Something You Got” Douglas revisits his collaboration with Eric Clapton from Douglas’ 2012 Traveler album, with Douglas offering up lead vocals this time around.
Douglas says of Clapton, “He’s very, very philanthropic. It’s great meeting these fellows late [in life] like this. With James Taylor and Eric Clapton, those guys at one point, you wouldn’t have been able to get close to ’em, just because of the way they were. But through all of that, they are very well-read, intelligent people, and it’s wonderful to be around them. There’s so much history whenever you talk with those guys because they’ve been there and done everything you can do in the music business. I just happened to be lucky enough to hang around them once in a while. And icons like [guitarist, Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and “Nashville Sound” architect] Chet Atkins, I loved being around Chet. You’d just hang on every word he said because everything he said had like three meanings and they were all good. But he had done everything, too. How many people produced the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton?”
The new version of “Something You Got” is notable, as Douglas is known as a performer who often sings lead vocals.
“I sang when I was a kid, until I started playing dobro and it just took over. I can find parts pretty easy, baritone and low tenor and things like that, but I wasn’t as comfortable in the lead role until I had a band and somebody needed to sing, so I was going to try it first. It’s funny how it surprises people when they do hear me sing, but I’ve been listening to the best singers on earth for 50 years and I know what not to do. I’m not a singer like Alison [Krauss] or Vince Gill. I’ll have them sing and I’ll play, because what I’m most comfortable doing is backing a singer.”
As he has looked up to his musical forebears, Douglas has also been a mentor and champion for artists including Tuttle and Billy Strings, as the sound of bluegrass continues to broaden and evolve.
“Historically, [bluegrass and jazz] come from the same place, but with jazz it’s more complicated while bluegrass is more rooted in the rudimentary chords, not a lot of diminished minors. Bluegrass music is more about social context in a way, but the social context that it was based on was a long time ago, and things have changed. That’s why now women are so well represented in the music. Growing up, as a kid, I didn’t see that many women [playing bluegrass], and if they did play, they were delegated to play the bass, which is a very important part of the music, but usually, it doesn’t really present you as the star on stage. I mean, some people can pull that off.
“But Missy Raines [the first woman musician to win the IBMA bass player of the year honor in 1998] turned it into a completely different thing. She has such a vocabulary with her bass [playing] that is different. And she’s a strong person who stuck it out when she was just kind of looked over when she shouldn’t have been [looked over]. The same with Molly [Tuttle] and [banjo virtuoso] Alison Brown. I like that it’s becoming more inclusive for everybody because back in Bill Monroe’s early days, it wouldn’t have been.”
Part of that evolution is being led by a new generation of bluegrass artists, including Strings, Tray Wellington, Wyatt Ellis and more.
“If it didn’t evolve, it would fade,” Douglas says. “The kids coming up who are playing are just incredible, and I know the internet has a lot to do with it. I had to sit there and listen to a record player, and I couldn’t slow my record player down either. So I had to put an ear on what was happening and try to figure it out. I didn’t have anything to see to give me an idea of what to do next. I didn’t even know if I had the thing tuned right at first. Now, you can study your favorite player online and pick up little things from that.”
Molly Tuttle, a two-time Grammy winner and the first woman to win the IBMA’s guitar player of the year honor (she won in both 2017 and 2018), has become one of Nashville’s most coveted musicians and a mainstay in the bluegrass scene.
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But Tuttle and her group Golden Highway — who’ve issued five albums since 2017 — have also leaned closer to musical troubadours rather than devout traditionalists, melding bluegrass with a range of styles. The group continues that ethos on the wide-ranging new EP Into The Wild, out Sept. 20 on Nonesuch Records.
“It’s a reflection of the last few years and what we’ve worked on as a band,” Tuttle tells Billboard.
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But the six-song EP, which follows the group’s 2023 Grammy-winning City of Gold, also nods to Tuttle’s northern California roots, where the Santa Clara-born Tuttle spent much of her youth practicing guitar and attending bluegrass and folk music festivals. At age 13, she recorded The Old Apple Tree, a collection of duets with her father. By 15, she had joined her family band The Tuttles, along with friend A.J. Lee.
She was inspired to write the EP’s title track with her partner Ketch Secor (of Old Crow Medicine Show), after spending a week in California’s Redwood National Forest. Far from a typical ode to the enduring nature of beauty, “Into the Wild” also offers a searing message, on the lines, “Times ain’t like they used to be/ The wilderness is hard to find at all/ The magic slipped way and the fires start in May/ Making way for another shopping mall.”
“We felt really inspired by the natural setting, but the song is also about the effect humans have on nature and how we need to protect these wild spaces,” Tuttle says.
Thus, “Into the Wild” also connects to another song on the project: a rendition of the late California folk singer Kate Wolf’s 1981 song “Here in California.”
“She’s someone who writes a lot about the natural world, and she’s one of my absolute favorite songwriters,” Tuttle says of Wolf, noting also the influence of the Kate Wolf Music Festival, held from 1996-2022 in northern California. “Her music kind of echoed throughout the Bay Area music scene and people were always jamming on her songs. She’s just very beloved in that area.
“I never got to go to that festival, and I remember writing emails to the festival every year asking them to book me,” Tuttle continues. “But I met a lot of people who played with her, like Nina Gerber, who was one of my first mentors who was a female lead guitarist.”
Tuttle considered a few Wolf songs to include on the album, but when she thought of “Here in California” and began researching versions of the song, she realized just how deep Wolf’s influence is embedded in her own musical history.
“I was like, ‘I want to cover a Kate Wolf song on this album,’ and I sent a few different songs to the band. When I Googled to find some live versions of [‘Here in California’], I actually found a video of myself playing it at age 15 and I forgot that I ever played it live before — but it was a video of me, my dad and AJ Lee performing it. Here I thought I had this new idea about covering this Kate Wolf song, but I had already covered it. It was kind of uncanny to see a video of myself playing it. But I loved how this version turned out. We got the old family band harmonies going again and A.J. is singing a verse, and it sounds amazing.”
Into The Wild’s eclectic set also spans covers of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and a glistening pop punk-meets-bluegrass rendering of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Good 4 U,” (which features Sierra Hull on mandolin) — a song Tuttle previously recorded as part of the Spotify Singles campaign. The EP also nods to City of Gold with an alternate version of “Stranger Things.” The new version is pared back, with Tuttle joined by mandolin player Dominick Leslie and cello/synth player Nathaniel Smith.
From those early bluegrass festivals, Tuttle’s journey has taken her to Boston, where she majored in guitar performance at Berklee College of Music, before moving to Nashville in 2015. She had released two projects of pop-tilted music before teaming with bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas, who co-produced the group’s albums Crooked Tree and City of Gold (both sets earned Grammy accolades for best bluegrass album).
Into the Wild releases just a week prior to this year’s International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards, set for Sept. 26 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Douglas will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
“I am so proud to have worked with him and just count him as a mentor and a friend, and someone who I really look up to,” Tuttle says. ‘I feel lucky to have made so much music with him, and he’s so deserving of this achievement. I’m really happy to see his name up there.”
Leading into this year’s ceremony, Tuttle and her Golden Highway bandmates — fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Leslie, bass player Shelby Means and banjo player Kyle Tuttle (no relation)– are also foremost nominees, up for a total of eight accolades, including entertainer of the year, vocal group of the year, instrumental group of the year and album of the year (City of Gold). Tuttle is up for female vocalist of the year and guitar player of the year, while bandmate Keith-Hynes is up for fiddle player of the year and new artist of the year.
“For me, when I’m making an album, I’m not thinking ‘Oh, I hope this wins a bunch of awards,’” she explains. “But then, when it’s out there in the world, you do hope people are resonating with it — and something like being nominated for the IBMA Awards is just that kind of affirmation that people are listening to it and liking it. I grew up going to the IBMAs and seeing so many of my heroes on stage there. So we’re excited to play a song off our latest record and it’s going to be a fun night. It always feels like a family reunion-meets-prom night, since we’re all dressed up.”
Thanks to Tuttle’s skills as a writer, musician and vocalist, she has become not only a multi-award winner, but an in-demand collaborator, recording and/or performing with artists including Jason Isbell, Lainey Wilson, Bela Fleck, Old Crow Medicine Show, Billy Strings, Yola, Bobby Osborne and Emmylou Harris. In 2018, she also teamed with Missy Raines, Alison Brown, Sierra Hull and Becky Buller for the supergroup First Ladies of Bluegrass.
But given the ample talent in Nashville, there are still plenty of artists on Tuttle’s bucket list. “I feel fortunate to have gotten to play with so many of my heroes,” she says. “One person who I’ve always wanted to sing with is Alison Krauss. That would be super fun.”
Ahead, in addition to a slate of tour dates, Tuttle says she’s in the “writing phase” of her next record. “I’m not sure what it will turn into yet, but I’m always working on new stuff and looking to go into the studio soon and hopefully have something out next year,” she says.
If she does release a new project next year, she’ll likely be performing some of that new music at next year’s IBMA Awards, which will relocate from Raleigh to a new venue in Chattanooga, Tenn.
“We were just in Chattanooga on Sunday and it’s such a great city,” Tuttle says. “I’m really excited that it’s going to be closer to Nashville, although I do love Raleigh. I just thought Raleigh was a great place for it to be. There were such great venues for bands to get to play all throughout Raleigh and then the Street Fest was really fun. So I hope that Chattanooga has kind of a similar setup. I think that works really well to have a few stages outdoors on the streets so that people can just walk around and enjoy music. Hopefully Chattanooga’s going to embrace IBMA in the same way and celebrate this big week that we have every year. But as a city, I’m really looking forward to spending time there for IBMA and seeing what it turns into.”
The nominees for the 2024 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Awards were revealed on Wednesday (July 17) from the SiriusXM Studios in Nashville.
Hosted by IBMA Executive director Ken White and Bluegrass Junction’s Joey Black, the final nominees unveiling ceremony also featured performances from Missy Raines and Allegheny, as well as Authentic Unlimited, who proved to be one of this year’s frontrunners, earning nominations spanning several categories.
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Additionally, White revealed three inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame: Alan Munde, Jerry Douglas and Katy Daley. Munde has been a leader in bluegrass music for more than five decades, through work as a banjo player, bandleader and educator. Munde has been part of projects including Poor Richard’s Almanac with Byron Berline, Sam Bush and Wayne Stewart, and has played with Jimmy Martin, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Country Gazette. He was a 2008 recipient of an IBMA distinguished achievement award.
Dobro player Douglas started with the Country Gentlemen in the 1970s and has played as part of J.D. Crowe’s New South and The Whites, before joining Alison Krauss’s Union Station in 1998. In 2014, he launched the Flatt & Scruggs tribute band the Earls of Leister. He’s earned 10 IBMA Awards for dobro player of the year and is a former vice president of the IBMA’s board of directors.
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Daley, a bluegrass music broadcaster, has worked at WAMU and in 1978, collaborated in the 13-part series Bluegrass Anthology. She’s also worked at WMZQ, before joining bluegrasscountry.org, serving as a morning personality. Daley has received two IBMA Awards for bluegrass broadcaster of the year and one for distinguished achievement.
The IBMA distinguished achievement award was given to bluegrass radio presenter Cindy Baucom, fiddler/vocalist/songwriter Laurie Lewis, Bluegrass Omagh music festival leader Richard Hurst, bluegrass music instructional video hub ArtistWorks, and the Dallas/Forth Worth-based Bloomin’ Bluegrass Festival.
The 35th annual IBMA Music Awards will be held Sept. 26 during the 2024 IBMA World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina. World of Bluegrass runs from Sept. 24-28 at the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts.
See the full list of nominees below:
Entertainer of the year
Billy Strings
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway
Del McCoury Band
Sister Sadie
The Po Ramblin’ Boys
Male vocalist of the year
Dan Tyminski
Greg Blake
Del McCoury
Danny Paisley
Russell Moore
Female vocalist of the year
Molly Tuttle
Jaelee Roberts
Dale Ann Bradley
AJ Lee
Rhonda Vincent
New artist of the year
East Nash Newgrass
Brownwyn Keith-Hynes
AJ Lee and Blue Summit
Wyatt Ellis
The Kody Norris Show
Vocal group of the year
Authentic Unlimited
Sister Sadie
Blue Highway
Del McCoury Band
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway
Instrumental group of the year
Billy Strings
Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper
Travelin McCourys
East Nash Grass
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway
Album of the year
City of Gold, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
Last Chance to Win, East Nash Grass
Jubilation, Appalachian Road Show
No Fear, Sister Sadie
So Much For Forever, Authentic Unlimited
Song of the year
“Fall in Tennessee,” Authentic Unlimited
“Willow,” Sister Sadie
“Too Lonely, Way Too Long,” Rick Faris with Del McCoury
“Forever Young,” Daniel Grindstaff with Paul Brewster and Dolly Parton
“Kentucky Gold,” Dale Ann Bradley with Sam Bush
Music video of the year
“Alberta Bound,” Special Consensus with Ray Legere, John Reischman, Patrick Sauber, Trisha Gagnon, Pharis & Jason Romero and Claire Lynch
“Willow,” Sister Sadie
“Fall in Tennessee,” Authentic Unlimited
“The City of New Orleans,” Rhonda Vincent and the Rage
“I Call Her Sunshine,” The Kody Norris Show
Guitar player of the year
Billy Strings
Molly Tuttle
Trey Hensley
Bryan Sutton
Cody Kilby
Mandolin player of the year
Sierra Hull
Sam Bush
Ronnie McCoury
Jesse Brock
Alan Bibey
Banjo player of the year
Kristin Scott Benson
Gena Britt
Alison Brown
Bela Fleck
Rob McCoury
Resophonic guitar player of the year
Justin Moses
Rob Ickes
Jerry Douglas
Andy Hall
Gaven Largent
Fiddle player of the year
Jason Carter
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes
Michael Cleveland
Stuart Duncan
Deanie Richardson
Bass player of the year
Missy Raines
Mike Bub
Vickie Vaughn
Todd Phillips
Mark Schatz
Gospel recording of the year
“When I Get There,” Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out
“Thank You Lord For Grace,” Authentic Unlimited
“Just Beyond,” Barry Abernathy with John Meador, Tim Raybon, and Bradley Walker
“God Already Has,” Dale Ann Bradley
“Memories of Home,” Authentic Unlimited
Instrumental recording of the year
“Rhapsody in Blue(grass),” Bela Fleck
“Knee Deep in Bluegrass,” Ashby Frank
“Panhandle Country,” Missy Raines and Allegheny
“Lloyd’s of Lubbock,” Alan Munde
“Behind the 8 Ball,” Andy Leftwich
Collaborative recording of the year
“Brown’s Ferry Blues,” Tony Trischka feat. Billy Strings
“Fall in Tennessee,” Authentic Unlimited with Jerry Douglas
“Forever Young,” Daniel Grindstaff with Paul Brewster and Dolly Parton
“Bluegrass Radio,” Alison Brown with Steve Martin
“Too Old to Die Young,” Bobby Osborne with CJ Lewandowski
The lyrics to hip-hop artist Kid Cudi’s 2009 song “Pursuit of Happiness” include the lines “I’ma do just what I want/ Looking ahead, no turning back.”
Those lyrics also serve as a musically freeing anthem for bluegrass artist and banjo virtuoso Trajan “Tray” Wellington, who includes a fleet-fingered, hip-hop-tinted bluegrass version of the tune on his seven-song project, Detour to the Moon, out July 12 via Mountain Home Music Company.
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“I’ve always considered myself an explorer of the banjo. I always try to look at it as exploration within music and always pushing boundaries,” the 25-year-old Wellington tells Billboard. “I think within roots music, a lot of the time it can get stagnant and people feel like they have to do a certain avenue and appeal to this or appeal to that.”
Wellington grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and counts his grandfather’s CD collection as his first brush with musical infatuation. Initially, Wellington began playing electric guitar, until six months later he found a Doc Watson greatest hits CD in the collection, which inspired him to learn to flat pick guitar. Then Wellington’s middle school had a Mountain Music Club, where his teacher brought out a banjo and began playing the bluegrass standard “Salt Creek.”
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“I had never heard anything like it,” Wellington recalls of picking up the banjo at age 14. “I fell in love with it, and pretty much immediately put the guitar to the side and began learning banjo.”
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His proficiency on the instrument was apparent even before his graduation from East Tennessee State University’s prestigious Bluegrass, Old Time and Country program, as he had already won the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s 2019 momentum award for instrumentalist of the year while performing as part of the group Cane Mill Road (which also earned the IBMA’s momentum band of the year award that same year).
He followed with the independent EP Uncaged Thoughts in 2020, before signing with Mountain Home Music Company later that year. He’s since performed on the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass main stage, hosted the Momentum Awards ceremony and led banjo workshops at Merlefest and Gray Fox music festivals.
Wellington’s music has always carried within it the indelible influence of jazz music, and that is apparent again on his latest outing, with his bluegrass-meets-new age take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” while nodding to bluegrass artist Bill Keith’s 1970s banjo-spotlighting rendition.
“When I was trying to work it out on banjo, I figured out this cool chord voicing for it,” Wellington says. “I was like, ‘This makes it sound almost like a new-age sound,’ so I tried to take that and make it sound even more spacey in a way. My fiddle player at the time, Josiah Nelson, knew ‘Caravan,’ so I asked him to play the melody of ‘Caravan’ over it and it just gave a totally different vibe from any other version I’ve heard.”
Elsewhere, he offers a stunning rendering of John Hiatt’s “Lift Up Every Stone,” but also melds these re-imaginings with originals such as “Spiral Staircase.”
His sound fuses his musically progressive probing with traditional bluegrass elements. In addition to Nelson, joining him are bassist Katelynn Bohn, drummer Mike Ashworth (of Steep Canyon Rangers), singer/guitarist Nick Weitzenfeld, steel guitarist DaShawn Hickman, vocalist Wendy Hickman and Americana artist Kaia Kate. Detour to the Moon was recorded at Arden, North Carolina’s Crossroads Studios, a recording space often utilized by bluegrass luminaries including Bryan Sutton, Lonesome River Band, Doyle Lawson, and Alison Krauss & Union Station member Barry Bales.
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Wellington has also made considerable strides in dismantling musical boundary lines and stereotypes with his music. Most notably with his 2022 debut full-length album Black Banjo, Wellington has been a fierce advocate for increasing diversity and representation within the genre.
“With the Black Banjo project, No. 1 was the idea that Black people invented this music; they belong here,” he says. “No. 2, and one of the biggest things I would say I face sometimes — but not as much anymore — was people trying to tell me what I need to do with my music, like ‘You have to do this as a Black musician,’ or ‘You need to play some songs on the gourd banjo,’ or ‘You need to play these songs by these people from time to time. People feel the need to say that, but it’s a very one-dimensional way of looking at how to showcase Black art in this music. Really, the best way you can do it is letting these Black individuals have prime slots to showcase their talent. I just had to realize that I’m my own musician, with my own set of influences.”
He expanded on the mission of Black Banjo by teaming with three other Black roots musicians late last year — vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Kater, bassist Nelson Williams and fiddler/vocalist Jake Blount — to form the group New Dangerfield. They released their debut single, “Dangerfield Newby,” in April and Wellington says the group is prepping to release another song later this month and are set to head into the studio to record an album later this year.
“We’re four different artists that have different backgrounds, different sets of musical personalities and what we’re trying to do now is figure out how it all works together,” Wellington says.
He says he has seen representation grow in terms of artists of color within the genre, but there is still much work to be done in terms of representation within the bluegrass genre’s audience.
“When I very first started, I don’t remember seeing many people at all that were Black,” Wellington notes. “As I got older, I started realizing a lot more and was like, ‘It is weird how there are not many people that look like me in this music.’ But I think there has been more representation and I think a lot of organizations are doing work to make sure people feel welcomed. But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, especially within the audience spectrum, especially. I’d love to see that aspect of it grow. Musicians [are] one thing, but still, most places I go, like 95%, it’s primarily a white audience. And I think it’s as much of a mix of the musicians as well as the actual venues themselves, because there are certain places [where] just a bunch of people of different backgrounds don’t feel comfortable going. If you’re walking into a room that’s primarily white, as a person of color, you do feel like an outlier. It’s about making people feel welcome when they come in.”
While he works to advocate for greater diversity within roots music, and expand the genre beyond traditional boundaries, he also has a bucket list of artists he hopes to one day work with — including bluegrasser Billy Strings, Snarky Puppy’s Cory Henry, and singer Bella White.
“While I’m still building and still growing as an artist, I do feel like I’m getting to do a lot of cool things I’ve always wanted to do,” Wellington says. “I just got back from a short tour in Europe, and I was at the airport last night and had the realization, like, ‘Man, I started playing banjo at 14. And 14-year-old me would’ve never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now.’”
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Bluegrass duo Darin & Brooke Aldridge have earned their first Billboard chart No. 1 with their new album Talk of the Town (released via Billy Blue Records), which debuted at the pinnacle of Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart for the week dated May 4. The duo has previously notched five top 10 albums on Bluegrass Albums, […]
In this week’s batch of new country music fare, we have country/Americana maestro Charley Crockett’s sterling new album, as well as new songs from Darius Rucker with Jennifer Nettles, as well as Ole 60, Karley Scott Collins, MacKenzie Porter and Karli June. Additionally, bluegrassers The Del McCoury Band offer up new music as well as a collab from Tony Trischka and Vince Gill.
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Charley Crockett, $10 Cowboy
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Over the course of more than a dozen studio albums, Crockett has painstakingly built his reputation as an electrifying live performer, and a kingpin of crafting traditional country tunes, while adroitly enmeshing layers of various styles into his work, including soul, blues, funk, gospel and more. On his latest, there are moments of converging country and R&B, while his penchant for capturing a live performance feel is apparent on $10 Cowboy, which he recorded live to tape in Austin, Texas, with his steady collaborator Billy Horton. Songs such as the horn-driven “America,” the jangly acoustic country of “Hard Luck and Circumstances,” the blues-rock of “Solitary Road” as well as songs such as the title track and “Midnight Cowboy” all pay homage to his skill with keen observations and to his journey from street busker to his current status as acclaimed headliner.
Darius Rucker and Jennifer Nettles, “Never Been Over”
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Two of country music’s strongest, most identifiable voices collide here, as Rucker welcomes Nettles in a reimagined version of this song, which he first recorded for his Carolyn’s Boy album. Nettles joins on the song’s second verse, adding another rich layer of nuance to the tale of a couple unwinding the ties that have bonded them for years. As the song reaches its apex, Nettles sends up some soaring vocals as Rucker holds down the melody. Rucker has one of music’s most commanding voices, but Nettles matches his steady, slightly raspy vocal wondrously with her charismatic soprano. In recent years, Rucker has shifted a bit from some of the uptempo, radio-ready fare he’s become known for and issues some of his strongest performances of late, such as another stellar collaboration, with Dax on “To Be a Man.”
Karli June, “Still Make Cowgirls”
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She’s not afraid to be a fearless, independent-minded cowgirl in a world of followers and she’s fierce enough to dare a potential suitor to ride along. Canada native June is presently celebrated with four CMA Ontario Awards nominations, and follows them with this song she co-wrote with Deric Ruttan. Her twangy vocal also carries a slight edge as it floats over the Western-tinged yet modern sonics.
The Del McCoury Band, “Just Because”
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Since the 1960s, when Del McCoury performed as part of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, he has been a torchbearer, both aiding in laying down the prototype for the genre–and pushing beyond its traditional boundaries. The two-time Grammy-winning The Del McCoury Band, led by the Bluegrass Music Hall of Famer, has blended its distinctive sound with a range of musical styles over the years, leading to collaborations and/or performances with artists including Dierks Bentley, Steve Earle and Phish. That genre-spanning intention continues on the band’s latest, as they cover the blues-driven “Just Because,” originally recorded by The California Honeydrops on their 2013 album Like You Mean It. Here, The Del McCoury Band transforms it into an expertly rendered, galloping bluegrass tune, with fleet-fingered picking, winding fiddle and McCoury’s commanding tenor.
Ole 60, “Next to You”
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This Kentucky quintet broke through earlier this year with viral hits “A Smoke & a Light” and the bluesy ballad “Brother Joe.” They follow with “Next to You,” a harmonica and banjo-inflected song starts out with an unhurried, moody ethos, before picking up the pace in the last half of the song, ascending into a plucky, bluegrass-tinged jamband vibe. This indie group, which recently signed with The Neal Agency for booking, keeps its engaging music rolling with this one, which embeds stark details revolving around an on-and-off again relationship. “Fools in love ain’t fools at all/ That’s why I pick up ever time that you call,” frontman Jacob Young sings, continuing, “Pack of Marlboro Lights and some Adderall/ I’ll be on my way.”
Tony Trischka and Vince Gill, “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
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From Trischka’s upcoming project Earl Jam: A Tribute to Earl Scruggs (out June 7), this track features a top-shelf assortment of premier bluegrassers, including Trischka, Vince Gill, Michael Cleveland, Brittany Haas, Dominick Leslie and Mike Bub. Together, they offer an exemplary latticework mandolin, guitar, banjo and fiddle on this classic from the country music canon, popularized by The Carter Family and recorded by the familial group during country music’s “Big Bang,” the Bristol Sessions, in 1927. The fiddle lines from Cleveland and Haas are superb, bolstered by Trischka’s banjo picking and topped off by Gill’s high-caliber vocal.
Karley Scott Collins (feat. Charles Kelley), “How Do You Do That”
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Collins teams with Lady A’s Charles Kelley on this pulsating collaboration, which puts their tight-knit harmonies in focus and delves into the moments of a fissured relationship that leave one questioning everything they knew about an ex-lover. Kelley’s soulful country voice is in top form, while Collins’ rangy, grit-meets-silk vocal offers a remarkable, dynamic foil. Collins wrote this track with Kelley, Jordan Reynolds and Tom Jordan.
MacKenzie Porter, “Foreclosure”
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MacKenzie Porter made her American country radio breakthrough with her Dustin Lynch collaboration, the multi-week No. 1 “Thinkin’ Bout You.” But she’s out to showcase her own singer-songwriter talents and perspective on her newly-issued debut Big Loud album Nobody’s Born With a Broken Heart. Porter’s warm, soft-focus voice is bolstered by a pop-aimed, sleek production on this standout track, which she wrote with Luke Niccoli, Lydia Vaughan, Parker Welling.
“I wasted all my good faith,” Porter sings, the slightly husky tremor in her voice acutely embodying both the hope and heartbreak on a song that chronicles a couple’s journey from buying a home together to later watching the relationship falter — so they put up the foreclosure sign, moving out and moving on.