Country Standard Time uses the recent release of their latest CD, Wildwood, as the springboard for a lengthy piece about alt-bluegrass road warriors Chatham County Line.
The article by Brian Baker, conducted largely as an interview with Chatham County Line guitarist/vocalist Dave Wilson, starts with recognition that they have drums on the new record.
Before bluegrass purists hyperventilate over this turn of events, it should be noted that CCL – Wilson on guitar, Chandler Holt on banjo, upright bassist Greg Reading and multi-instrumentalist John Teer – have no designs on rewriting the bluegrass rule book. In road dates around “Wildwood,” they will be appropriately drummerless.
“Adding a drum set up is almost more trouble than reward,” says Wilson. “We travel really tight. We have just our instruments and a couple of microphones, and we really dig the short sound check. We want to give people a completely organic show; what you see on stage is exactly what you hear. To add drums, we’d have to change our stage set up so much that it becomes a different band.”
Dave also discusses the way the band’s sound has evolved leading up to this, their fifth CD.
“The first record was, ‘We want to be a bluegrass band,'” says Wilson. “The second album was, ‘We are a bluegrass band, check us out,’ the third record was, ‘Hey, what about these songs and these stories that we really like?’ and it could be a bit more mellow, and with number four, we brought in more pedal steel and piano. Greg‘s an amazing steel and piano player so why hide his talents? This one is just an extension of that.”
You can read the full article at www.countrystandardtime.com.
Here’s a look and listen to one of the songs from Wildwood, Out Of The Running.
You can find more video and audio from the new album on the band’s web site.
