going Down the Rabbit Hole with the green queen of bluegrass Molly Tuttle and her incredible band 💚 / at the beautiful and woodsy Mishiwaka on the Poudre river 🏞️
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway / The Mishiwaka Ampitheatre / Bellvue, CO / Sunday June 2 2024
Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St from Swamp Dogg
Everyone who had this album on your 2024 bingo card collect your winnings. Mostly #acoustic, #bluegrass ish #roots#music, high energy playful and horny. Featuring Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas, Vernon Reid and more
Via G Money/Coast Range Lights, another group chat rec FTW
@mrcompletely i don't think it's screened outside festivals yet, but a friend was involved in this swamp dogg documentary & it's wonderful. worth keeping an eye out. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30835291/
It may not seem like it now, but during their time, the #SeldomScene were a groundbreaking #bluegrass act. Their willingness to cover rock songs and contemporary material was antithetical to the bluegrass gatekeepers of the time.
They also kept their day jobs. "Seldom Scene" was coined because at first they only played once a week and didn’t stray too far from their Washington D.C. home base.
Their influence on later bands and newgrass in general is undeniable.
Being a progressive bluegrass act they could rub some people the wrong way. I had to reprimand John Duffey once for being too vulgar on stage. (It was the Bishop’s Bluegrass Festival for goodness sake!)
They had a well-developed sense of fun, instrumental and vocal prowess, and high-quality output during an important time in bluegrass. "Live at the Cellar Door" was a landmark live album as well. All of this makes them an all-time great band.
@aburtch duffey really didn't get it and he alienated a lot of people with his crude jokes over the years. I genuinely think this was a limiting factor on their popularity bc he offended both religious folks on the trad side and anyone with feminist convictions on the progressive side. That aside they certainly were both excellent performers and important for the reasons you mention. The 1973 album was one of the great early newgrass signposts.
Some of my favorite Alison Krauss songs, listed below. 💜
"On November 21, 2019, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in September 2021"
Very sad to hear about the death of Ben Eldridge, banjo player for the legendary #bluegrass act the Seldom Scene. Ben was a fierce picker and a gentleman, kind to everyone he met.
anyone out there in #bluegrass mastodon have any leads on tapes of the gone-too-soon Mary And Mars project that Sharon Gilchrist, Ben Wright, and Josh Martin put together in the early 2000s?
I have untagged mp3s of their 2003 self titled album but would love to find some shows (and FLACs of that album as well as the one live release they put out too if I'm gonna get greedy...)
here's their take on Cold Rain & Snow which has been a fav for me ever since I first heard it
@LostReflector I can ask Ben, he was a good friend and bandmate in HS and college. He’s in a dead cover band in Santa Fe (among other projects) called Detroit Lightning
This is easily one of my favorite #bluegrass shows. Even though it happened in the cdr era I still managed to wear out the tapes. Crazy this one turns 25 this year
one of the things I love about #bluegrass is how referential and respectful it is. I hadn't thought about this show for a bit but on a rec from @mrcompletely I listened to a Mark Lavengood album tonight which includes this song
and the opening, longing dobro immediately reminded me of the 09.05.1999 Bluegrass Sessions show which includes the song Hide and Go Seek (40:45 mark of the video in the first post) upon which this song is based, combined with Big Country
Willie Nelson - Sad Songs and Waltzes - #Bluegrass (ish) version
Despite the album cover that looks like a mid 2000s drug rapper's mixtape, this album that kind of came and went last year really is very good if you like Willie and acoustic instruments. The arrangements aren't changed enough to count as "real bluegrass" for the most part but who cares? He sounds great singing these tunes over this kind of instrumentation. I'd take another album or two of this material
@mrcompletely I love hearing his voice as an old man. He sounded old and wise at 30, now he sounds well and truly ancient, like he's thousands of years old. Thanks for pointing this out! This expat Texan ❤️s Willie