bluegrass
Songwriters often note that the concept of turning a song into a hit, at its core, crucially leans on timing: the right singer connecting with the right song at the perfect time. For 27-time Grammy winner, vocalist/fiddler Alison Krauss, that convergence of artist, song and time sparked the reconvening of one of bluegrass music’s most revered groups, the 14-time Grammy winners Alison Krauss & Union Station, who will release their first album in nearly 14 years, the Down the Road Records project, Arcadia, on Friday (March 28).
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“We didn’t mean for it to take so long, but it did,” Krauss told Billboard.
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Krauss has long had a habit of tucking away songs that she loves, waiting for the right time to record them. Over the years, she’s amassed a collection of those potential recordings, but it wasn’t until she heard the Jeremy Lister song “Looks Like It’s the End of the Road” during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that Krauss felt she’d found that perfect song to kick off a new record with her band Union Station, one that would mark their first since 2011’s Grammy-winning Paper Airplane.
“I had been collecting most of those things since we recorded the last album, so I’d had a lot of them,” Krauss says. “I heard Jeremy Lister’s song and within the first half of the first verse I’m like, ‘There it is.’ A few days later, I texted everybody saying we should get together. I never stopped wanting to [make a new album], but with touring and people recording, there’s such a huge factor, because everybody is scattered.”
The top-caliber talents of each of the band’s members led them to an array of various projects through the years, including studio work, collaborations with other artists and their own solo projects.
In 2017, Krauss released the solo project Windy City. In 2021, she teamed with rock icon Robert Plant for the album Raise the Roof (the sequel to their Grammy-winning Raising Sand project) and a subsequent tour as a duo. Krauss’s Union Station bandmate, dobro player Jerry Douglas has released numerous solo albums, including 2024’s The Set with his own band. Douglas and Union Station bassist Barry Bales also paid tribute to Flatt and Scruggs as part of the group Earl of Leicester. Among other music initiatives, banjoist Ron Block released the 2015 project Hogan’s House of Music. Meanwhile, in 2017, vocalist/mandolin player/guitarist Dan Tyminski released the project Southern Gothic, followed by 2023’s God Fearing Heathen.
“It was great,” Krauss recalls of those first sessions playing with the group and getting acquainted with playing the songs together. “Once we listened to all the material, we started playing all the songs and it’s never a labored process of getting those initial arrangements down for tracking. They are such a great band, cutting the basic tracks that goes really smoothly. So, this is a magical moment for me to be singing my scratches [scratch vocals] over those tracks.”
But as the group began to reconvene, they realized the new project would come with a significant shift in the group’s lineup, when Tyminski revealed he would not be returning to the group, so that he could focus on his solo career.
“Nobody wanted Dan to go, but we respect what he feels called to do,” Krauss says. Tyminski’s influence on the project can still be heard on instrumentation on the album, and he co-wrote the album’s “The Wrong Way” with Robert Lee Castleman.
“He played me that song, it’s got to be 10 years ago at least,” Krauss says. “I’ve had that song a long time and I loved it immediately. I thought it was just beautiful.”
On the new album, Russell Moore, a six-time IBMA male vocalist of the year winner known for his work as part of the seven-time IBMA vocal group of the year-winning group IIIrd Tyme Out, joins Union Station, adding his unmistakable voice alongside Krauss’s ethereal soprano.
“Can you believe his singing?” Krauss gushes. “We all grew up in that same generation and all had the same similar influences of what was happening in bluegrass at the time. We’re all made of the same stuff—we ate the same grass.”
She adds, “So when this came up, we were like, ‘What are we going to do?’ I mentioned Russell and he’s been so respected in this music for decades. The first time I heard him sing, I was 14 and he was 21 — he was playing with Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. He and Dan [Tyminski], of that era, were the guys. I can’t even believe we got to play with Dan for 30 years and now we get to play with Russell, too. It’s just amazing, the fortune of this band. It’s amazing to hear [Russell] sing, standing next to him — this amazing voice you’ve heard your whole life.”
Moore’s work with IIIrd Tyme Out will take a brief hiatus as Moore records and tours as part of Union Station.
“I didn’t think he would [join Union Station] because he’s got his own group,” Krauss says of reaching out to Moore. “But he was up for talking about it. And the way we’ve structured this tour is to make sure everybody can still do their own stuff. We’re going out for six months and then the rest of the year is to make sure everybody else’s projects are honored. I don’t think [Russell] would’ve [joined] had we not made sure that [IIIrd Tyme Out] would be honored, too. There was no way he was going to leave his group — he’s built that over 30-something years.”
The new album places vocals and stories at the fore, with the band expertly building each instrumental bed around Moore and Krauss’s voices. Many of the album’s songs center around despairing storylines, with some recording details of long-ago tragedies, such as the Civil War tale “Richmond on the James,” or when Moore takes the vocal lead on “Granite Mills,” which depicts the story of a fire at a mill in Massachusetts in 1874, which took the lives of more than a dozen people. Elsewhere, “Hangman” sets a desolate poem from Maurice Odgen to music.
“One thing that bluegrass tunes have never been afraid of is saying exactly what happened,” Krauss says of “Granite Mills.” “My son asked me not that long ago, ‘How do you sing these sad songs? I can’t even listen.’ I said, ‘I have to sing them, and I feel called to sing them. A lot of these stories you may not even know.’ I talked to someone who lived in the area that the mill tragedy happened in, and he said, ‘I didn’t even know that happened here.’ So here in this song, it’ll live forever. For me, these tragedy songs, they’re survival stories and they bring encouragement to people. Trying to survive will never go away, no matter what time in history. It’s just the human condition.”
The album does have some moments of levity, as when Bales and Block lighten the mood with “North Side Gal,” with twin fiddle work from Alison and Stuart Duncan. The album is bookended with another Lister song, “There’s a Light Up Ahead,” which lends a more hope-filled conclusion to the project.
The album reunites them with the founders of Rounder Records — Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy, and Bill Nowlin — who launched a new label, Down the Road Records, in 2023. As with reuniting with Union Station, it was Krauss who made the first call.
“When I started to hear about them putting the label together, I was like, ‘I wonder if there’s room for us? If I don’t ask, I’ll never know,’” Krauss says. “Because those folks, they’re the real deal. They’re the evangelists of folk music and traditional music. I love being there with people that feel that way about the music, that it has to be heard and it has to be recorded. I love who they are, so I’m thrilled to be with them again.”
This spring, Alison Krauss & Union Station will launch their first tour in a decade, with 75 North American tour dates set. As for the possibility of another 14 years elapsing between projects for Krauss and Union Station, Krauss says, “No, it won’t be that long. I definitely hope not. I’m thrilled to be back with these guys and getting to make new music and play the older ones again. It’s so nice to hear the old songs.”
Since bluegrass artist and mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull signed her first label deal at just 13 and released her Rounder Records debut in 2008, she’s long since grown used to shattering glass ceilings.
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In 2016, Hull became the first woman named the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)’s mandolin player of the year — and went on to win in the category five more times. She is also part of the acclaimed assembly The First Ladies of Bluegrass, who were the first women to win IBMA musician accolades in their respective instrument categories — in addition to Hull winning mandolin player of the year, her cohorts include Missy Raines (bass player of the year), Alison Brown (banjo player of the year), Becky Buller (fiddle player of the year) and Molly Tuttle (guitar player of the year).
So, the title of Hull’s new album, A Tip Toe High Wire, out Friday (March 7), nods to the ambition and uncertainty that comes with high-flying acrobatics—a feeling familiar to Hull, who is stepping out onto her own highwire, as the album marks not only her first release in five years, but Hull’s first as an independent artist after parting with Rounder.
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“It is so wild to think how different the landscape was for an artist releasing music than what it is now,” Hull tells Billboard, adding, “I’m so grateful to Rounder and the experience I got to have there. I feel like a lot of people start out their careers more independent, hoping to get signed or go the label route and then go back independent. But for me, [making records independently] is brand new.”
When Hull’s contract with Rounder had been fulfilled, she says, “I just felt like I wasn’t in a rush to make any decisions. I felt like it was a good opportunity to have a clean slate. I didn’t have an album that was about to come out, so I thought, ‘Let me take a moment of pause and see what happens.’ I don’t know if I’ll forever be independent. Who knows? But I felt like I owed it to myself to have this moment to experience it and learn from it.”
The album takes its title from one of the project’s songs, “Spitfire,” which Hull wrote for her late grandmother over two years ago. The song touches on the hardships Hull’s grandmother faced, including becoming a widow by 18 after her husband died in a drowning accident roughly a month after their wedding.
“There’s a lyric, ‘Tougher than thorns on a brier.’ That was her, this country woman who grew up in the boonies of Tennessee,” Hull says. “She grew up poor and never had a lot of education and things like that in her life, but she was just an instinctually smart woman. So much of what she had to endure, she fought her way through. When I think about something that I feel down about, sometimes I think of Granny and knew she would’ve been tough. She would do anything for her family and fight for all of us in the most beautiful way, but she ain’t going to take no crap from nobody.”
It’s a song that has fueled Hull as a creator and as a businesswoman in her new space as an independent artist.
“It can be a little scary stepping into this space,” says two-time Grammy nominee Hull, who pulled together a supportive team around her that includes TMWRK Management’s Paddy Scace and Dylan Sklare, and Wasserman for booking. “It felt like I didn’t have to ask too many questions to anybody else… It was me calling the shots. It’s different investing your own time and vision and financially, and all those things. I’m kind of putting everything on myself, but there’s freedom in that, too.”
Her first session for the new album stretches back to December 2021, when Hull did basic tracking for a couple of songs. But the project was sidelined as Hull took on roles providing instrumental work on a range of albums including Sturgill Simpson’s Passage du Desir, a John Anderson tribute album, Béla Fleck’s Rhapsody in Blue and My Bluegrass Heart, Tuttle’s Crooked Tree, and some of Brad Paisley’s recent music releases. She also toured with Simpson’s and Devon Allman’s bands, in addition to helming her own shows.
Those live performances informed A Tip Toe High Wire, which features Hull’s touring band, including Shaun Richardson on guitar, Avery Merritt on fiddle, Erik Coveney on bass and Mark Raudabaugh on drums. Hull had intended to tour with a full band to promote 2020’s 25 Trips, but the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered those plans. So, when the opportunity to hit the road reopened, Hull took advantage and those performances prompted Hull to draw in the tightknit feel of the live band into the new project.
“Just the inspiration of working with those guys [made me think] about what the music would feel like if they were part of it in the recorded setting as well,” she says. “It was the first time where I had written specific songs, thinking about how this group of musicians would sound playing on it.”
Hull and her bandmates worked to create a balance on A Tip Toe High Wire, upholding her reverence for bluegrass traditions, while simultaneously looking forward with unique collaborations.
“I wanted something fresh, new and maybe innovative feeling,” Hull says. “That’s always the desire for me as an artist to grow and learn, especially as an instrumentalist. I’ve been able to do fun collaborations, but I also just love good, simple songs. The other part of me is not trying to rewrite the script. I just want to do music that feels meaningful to me, and kind of lean into my roots all at the same time.”
The fleet-fingered instrumental track “E Tune,” an older tune on the album that features Fleck, was previously considered for Hull’s 2016 album Weighted Mind, and the 25 Trips album, but didn’t make the cut until now.
“It became a staple of our live show. Once we recorded it, I thought it would be cool with banjo. I’ve done so much with Béla Fleck over the past few years that I asked him to be on this track with us. When he played on it, it just kind of clicked in a way that I was like, ‘Okay, this is making the record. This is the moment.’ We needed that Béla Fleck magic on there.”
Hull produced the album with longtime friend and engineer Shani Gandhi. Other collaborators include Tim O’Brien on the balmy “Come Out of My Blues,” and Aoife O’Donovan on the harmony-drenched “Let’s Go.” The project’s lead single, “Boom” has been a frequent inclusion in Hull’s live shows for the past couple of years.
“It has a few versions of it,” she says. “There’s a real relaxed thing when we get to play this song, something joyful that you can lean into that relaxed nature.”
In May, Hull and her band will take the new music on the road, joining Willie Nelson’s 10th anniversary Outlaw Music Festival Tour, with a lineup that also includes Bob Dylan, Billy Strings, Lake Street Dive and Lily Meola.
Alison Krauss & Union Station will return with the group’s first new album in 14 years, Arcadia, when the project releases March 28 on Down The Road Records.
The group just released a first glimpse at the project with the new song “Looks Like the End of the Road.”
The 10-song Arcadia album, produced by Alison Krauss & Union Station, features songs primarily composed by Robert Lee Castleman, Viktor Krauss, Bob Lucas, JD McPherson and Sarah Siskind.
“Usually, I find something that’s a first song, and then things fall into place,” Krauss said in a statement. “That song was ‘Looks Like The End Of The Road.’ Jeremy Lister wrote it, and it just felt so alive — and asalways, I could hear the guys already playing it.”
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The new album will release on Down The Road Records, which was founded in 2023 by Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy and and Bill Nowlin, who previously founded the iconic independent music label Rounder Records, as well as “fourth Rounder” John Virant, who led Rounder for several years. Krauss was first signed to Rounder when she was 14. Meanwhile, Douglas first worked with Rounder in the 1970s as part of JD Crowe & The New South. Rounder supported Alison Krauss & Union Station’s earlier releases, from the group’s 1989 debut album Two Highways to their 2011 album Paper Airplane, which debuted atop multiple Billboard albums charts, including the country and bluegrass charts.
With Arcadia, Alison Krauss & Union Station welcome new band member Russell Moore on guitar, mandolin and co-lead vocals. Moore is known for his work with another bluegrass outfit, IIrd Tyme Out, and is the International Bluegrass Music Association’s most-awarded male vocalist. He joins bandmates Krauss (fiddle, lead vocals), Jerry Douglas (dobro, lap steel, vocals), Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals) and Barry Bales (bass, vocals).
Krauss said in a statement regarding the album, “The stories of the past are told in this music. It’s that whole idea of ‘in the good old days when times were bad.’ There’s so much bravery and valor and loyalty and dreaming, of family and themes of human existence that were told in a certain way when our grandparents were alive. Someone asked me, ‘How do you sing these tragic tunes? I have to. It’s a calling. I feel privileged to be a messenger of somebody else’s story. And I want to hear what happened.”
Alison Krauss & Union Station will also embark on their first tour together in a decade when The Arcadia 2025 Tour finds the storied group performing 75 dates across the United States and Canada. The new slate of tour dates starts with a two-night stint at The Louisville Palace in Louisville, Ky., on April 17-18.
Listen to “Looks Like the End of the Road” and see the track list for Arcadia below:
“Looks Like The End Of The Road” (Writer: Jeremy Lister)“The Hangman” (Viktor Krauss & Maurice Ogden)“The Wrong Way” (Robert Lee Castleman & Dan Tyminski)“Granite Mills” (Timothy Eriksen)“One Ray Of Shine” (Sarah Siskind & Viktor Krauss)“Richmond On The James” (Alison Krauss & G.T. Burgess)“North Side Gal” (Jonathan David McPherson)“Forever” (Robert Lee Castleman)“Snow” (Bob Lucas)“There’s A Light Up Ahead” (Jeremy Lister)
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Women artists lead this week’s crop of stellar new songs, including Hailey Whitters‘ somber examination of grief and friendship, as well as Sierra Hull’s shimmering new bluegrass offering and Lanie Gardner’s raw, rock-fueled new track.
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Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of several top new country, bluegrass and Americana tracks of the week.
Hailey Whitters, “Casseroles”
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ACM Award winner Whitters, known for her charming, sunny songs such as “Everything She Ain’t,” returns with her first new music since 2023. This time, she offers a somber ballad reflecting on how the pain, loss and realities of a life irrevocably shifted by the passing of a loved one don’t pause for those navigating grief. In the song’s later verses, the song veers more introspective, as Whitters ponders the caliber of friend she has been to those going through grief–a friend whose concern is fleeting, or one who keeps showing up with long-term support. Whitters is known for her own wisdom-filled songwriting prowess, but on this elegantly-instrumented ballad, written by Hillary Lindsey, James Slater and Tom Douglas, Whitters gives a reminder that her nimble voice is a potent emotional translator.
Sierra Hull, “Boom”
Multi-IBMA Award winner Hull is set to release her first album in five years (and first independently-released project) on March 7, with A Tip Toe High Wire. The lead single from that project is a slab of sparkling mandolin, steady acoustic guitar, syncopated rhythms and high-flying harmonies. Written by Hull and Adam Wright, “Boom” has been part of Hull’s live shows for a couple of years. Hull wraps her conversational, angelic vocal around lyrics of moving past mistakes and regrets to embrace new eras of hope and love. “Promises break like little figurines,” she sings knowingly, but reminds listeners that it takes is a heart-shifting moment to turn heartbreak to love.
Lanie Gardner, “Buzzkill”
Gardner has seen her musical profile ascend thanks to her breakthrough cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” and having a song included on the blockbuster Twisters: The Album. She follows it with this funky, bold takedown of a certified “mean girl,” turning this defiant blast of wisdom into a communal rallying cry. Gardner’s voice is at once searing and sultry, and she stands from a crowded pack of country music newcomers by infusing her music with seething rock fusions.
Emily Ann Roberts, “Easy Does It”
On her previous debut album, Can’t Hide Country, Roberts cemented her current status as one of country music’s most engaging, neo-traditional voices. She follows that project with this new song, one in which her butter-soft voice in a single breath encapsulates both the sting of painful memories and the emotional exhale of relief at a current romantic situation. “I thought doors were meant to slam/hate and love went hand in hand,” she sings, reflecting on an emotionally-battering relationship, juxtaposing that past toxic experience with her present easygoing, faith-restoring love. Roberts wrote this song with Jason Haag and Autumn Buysse.
The Droptines, “Old Tricks”
Texas band The Droptines formed in 2019 and has since been growing their audience in a time-tested, one-show-at-a-time fashion, becoming an in-demand live act. The group’s unfiltered alt-country sound continues on “Old Tricks,” written by The Droptines frontman and lyricist Conner Authur. “I try to change, but I’m a stray after all,” he sings, musing about brief romantic flings and jilted lovers that war with an un-dimming desires. The Droptines released their self-titled project last year, and keep building their reputation as a must-hear group.
Willow Avalon, “The Actor”
Avalon’s vivid songwriting and signature vocal warble have commanded attention with her previously released songs such as “Gettin’ Rich and Goin’ Broke.” Here, she pours her distinct drawl over a tale of rueful reflection over romantic mistakes on this song from her newly released project Southern Bell Raisin’ Hell. “I was a fool and he was an actor,” she sings over robust guitars. The song teems with regrets over a ex-lover, but Avalon sings it with a grit that seems to suggest someone who’s learned the lessons and moved on with defiant confidence.
Olivia Wolf, “The Veil”
Northern California native Olivia Wolf transcends the boundaries between temporal and the ethereal, blending incisive, observant lyricism with elements of bluegrass, folk and country. Wolf’s debut album Silver Rounds released today (Jan. 17), featuring tracks including the somber song “The Veil,” which Wolf wrote with Sean McConnell. Backed by sparse guitar, she ponders the fast-arriving sense of loss on lyrics such as “I won’t be here tomorrow/ But this midnight is ours.” Her voice is imbued with an earthy elegance as the song slowly builds around her, frothing into dramatic tension before concluding with a feeling of stoic resignation as she sings, “It’s heavy sometimes seeing behind the veil.” This album marks Wolf as an astute singer-songwriter well worth listening to.
Multi-faceted musician Billy Strings is bolstering his 2025 touring schedule with a slate of added headlining concerts throughout the spring and summer.
The nearly 20 newly-added dates begin April 3 with three concerts in St. Augustine, Fla. at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, with more shows set for states including Georgia, Michigan, Missouri and Illinois. The trek winds down with two shows at Lexington, Ky.’s Rupp Arena on June 20-21.
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Pre-sale for all of his April through June shows launch Jan. 8, and general on-sale begins Jan. 10. These shows follow several of Strings’s show which are slated for January, February and March, including six sold-out shows in Asheville, N.C. in February, and a trio of shows in Nashville, Tenn. in February and March.
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Beyond touring, Strings has issued a pair of collaborations in recent months, appearing on Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion album on the song “M-E-X-I-C-O,” and teaming with Zach Top on the Apple Music Sessions Nashville EP, where they revisited two of Top’s own songs, as well as a cover of Ricky Skaggs’s “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown.”
In October, Strings’s album Highway Prayers became the first bluegrass album to reach No. 1 on Top Album Sales chart since 2002. Strings’s album Live: Vol. 1 is also up for best bluegrass album at the 2025 Grammy Awards, which return to Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 2.
See the list of added shows for Strings’s 2025 Spring tour dates below:
April 3: St. Augustine, Fla. (St. Augustine Amphitheatre)April 4: St. Augustine, Fla. (St. Augustine Amphitheatre)April 5: St. Augustine, Fla. (St. Augustine Amphitheatre)April 9: Tampa, Fla. (Yuengling Center)April 11: Savannah, Ga. (Enmarket Arena)April 12: Savannah, Ga. (Enmarket Arena)April 15: Charlottesville, Va. (John Paul Jones Arena)April 17: Cary, N.C. (Koka Booth Amphitheatre)April 18: Cary, N.C. (Koka Booth Amphitheatre)April 19: Cary, N.C. (Koka Booth Amphitheatre)May 30: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena)May 31: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena)June 6: Rosemont, Ill. (Allstate Arena)June 7: Rosemont, Ill. (Allstate Arena)June 11: Kansas City, Mo. (T-Mobile Center)June 13: St. Louis (Chaifetz Arena)June 14: St. Louis (Chaifetz Arena)June 20: Lexington, Ky. (Rupp Arena)June 21: Lexington, Ky. (Rupp Arena)
In 2025, Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas will set out on the group’s first tour together in a decade when The Arcadia 2025 Tour finds the storied group performing 73 dates across the United States and Canada.
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The new slate of tour dates starts with a two-night stint at The Louisville Palace in Louisville, Ky., on April 17-18. The tour dates continue through late September, with stops in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Oklahoma City, San Diego, and Nashville. The trek will feature special guest Willie Watson, a co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show. Two decades into his career, Watson recently released his self-titled solo album in September.
Alison Krauss & Union Station are also set to release new music next year, marking the group’s first new release since 2011’s Paper Airplane, which earned a Grammy for best bluegrass album.
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“I’m so grateful to get to make music again with my comrades of 40 years,” Krauss said in a statement. “They’ve always accomplished incredible work individually and have been constantly traveling because of it. We’re very inspired to experience this new exciting chapter in the band’s history.”
This new chapter also features a lineup shift for the group, with the addition of vocalist-guitarist Russell Moore, who is best known for his work as frontman for IIIrd Tyme Out. Moore replaces Union Station’s former member Dan Tyminski. Moore has earned six male vocalist trophies from the International Bluegrass Music Awards, making him the most awarded male vocalist in the history of the IBMA Awards. He’s also led IIIrd Tyme Out to seven IBMA vocal group of the year honors. Moore will join longtime Union Station members Ron Block (banjo, guitar, vocals), Barry Bales (bass, vocals) and newly inducted Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Jerry Douglas (Dobro, lap steel, vocals).
“To say I’m excited about recording and touring with Alison Krauss & Union Station would be a huge understatement,” Moore said in a statement. “After 40 years of playing music full-time and leading my own group for 34 years, this opportunity is among the few things at the top of the list that my music career has offered me. My hopes and desires are to fill this spot in AKUS with the same professionalism, precision, and thoughtfulness as other members who have held this position before me, and I’m looking forward to the ‘ride’!”
Tickets for The Arcadia 2025 Tour will go on sale to the general public on Friday, Dec. 6, with presales available from Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 10 a.m. local through Thursday, Dec. 5, at 10 p.m. local time.
See a list of the group’s tour dates for 2025 below:
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.