Big bluegrass night in Nashville

Tonight (8/22) finds two venues in Music City offering special bluegrass shows. One will be available to anyone with an internet connection, while the other will be limited to folks lucky enough to be in town.

At 7:00 p.m. (CDT), Music City Roots will broadcast a special program celebrating the recent Putumayo collection, simply titled Bluegrass. The company produces compilation projects, intended to introduce music styles from outside the popular mainstream, which typically sell more than 100,000 units.

So MCR has assembled many of the artists who were featured on the CD for tonight’s show: Sam Bush Band, Town Mountain, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, and a duet performance by Alison Brown and Andrea Zonn.

The show is held at The Loveless Barn, and can be viewed  as a video stream online.

Then at 9:00 (CDT), a very special songwriter showcase is scheduled at The Station Inn, Nashville’s home for live bluegrass.

If you’ve ever attended one of these, you will probably have found a group of writers, each with guitar in hand, ready to strum along as they highlight songs, one by one. Tonight’s show at the Station will be quite different, in two important ways. Firstly, it will be a specifically bluegrass showcase, something of an anomaly in Nashville. But even more noteworthy, the program will feature five writers who are also strong instrumentalists and vocalists, and they will perform together, supporting each other’s material as a band.

Scheduled for the show are Sierra Hull on mandolin, Cia Cherryholmes on banjo, Josh Shilling on guitar, Jeremy Garrett on fiddle and Jon Weisberger on bass. Each will take their turn at the microphone, presenting a mix of new and previously recorded material.

It’s a big night for bluegrass in da’Ville.

 

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.