David Grindstaff, Troubadours sign with Mountain Fever

It is sadly often the case that stellar recordings by “unknown” artists can languish in obscurity while good, but not spectacular, releases from headline acts receive fawning attention from the music press. On some level, a complaint like this is a bit of a celebration of the obvious, but it can still rankle even if wholly expected.

Nor will I pretend that Bluegrass Today is completely immune from this tendency, though we did pick up on the debut, self-produced album by David Grindstaff, Here & Now. Grindstaff is a young singer and multi-instrumentalist currently studying in the bluegrass music program at ETSU, and his CD struck us as demonstrative of a budding star when it was released in March of this year.

David’s talent was not lost either on Mountain Fever Records, who have just signed both he and the band with whom he performs, The Troubadours, to the label. They are immediately re-issuing Here & Now to wide distribution (including radio promotion), and will release a first record from the band in the Spring of 2011.

Mark Hodges of Mountain Fever says that after hearing Grindstaff’s CD, it was simply the right thing to do…

“I felt it was such a great CD and David had a lot of potential as an artist. So we decided to re-release the CD on Mountain Fever Records and try to get the project the attention it truly deserves. Then, after hearing these guys pick and sing, we just really felt like the right thing to do was to put our efforts behind the whole band as well.”

The Troubadours are Grindstaff on bass and lead vocals, Eric Hardin on banjo, Colby Laney on mandolin and Ben Poteat on guitar. All but Hardin have been friends and pickin’ buds since high school, and with all four soon to complete their college studies, the idea of forming a band struck them as a fine idea. They will hit the studio soon to start working on a Mountain Fever project.

In the meantime, look for more news on Here & Now as it heads out to radio. A single, Another Lonely Day, should hit shortly. It comes from Daniel Salyer, a talented young songwriter currently working with Monroeville, who contributed a number of songs (and tenor vocals) to Here & Now.

Another Lonely Day: [http://traffic.libsyn.com/thegrasscast/another_lonely_day.mp3]

For David, all this is the happiest of happy endings.

“I’m really happy about the way all of this has turned out. There was a lot of work that went into recording my solo project and to have Mountain Fever Records get behind it and promote it means a lot to me. I think this project will act as a sneak-peek for the kind of music The Troubadours will be offering with our debut CD this Spring. I’m honored to be playing with musicians of this caliber.”

More audio samples from Here & Now can be found on Bluegrass Today and at CD Baby.

Share this:

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.