Folks in the know in the world of bluegrass have had their eye on Mo Pitney for quite some time.
He demonstrated his grass cred on last year’s Croweology project from Rickey Wasson, where he delivered a number of New South classics to perfection, and performing with his brother and sister in the midwest since he was teen.
This talented singer and guitarist from north central Illinois is set to break out in country music with a new album on Curb Records, Behind This Guitar, and a new single, Everywhere, hitting this week. But we know him as a bluegrass boy at heart, which he demonstrated this past weekend at the Sheraton Music City hotel during the SPBGMA convention in Nashville.
For the sake of his thousands of country fans, Pitney created this introductory video as he and his growing family entered the hotel. Mo and his wife, Emily, just recently celebrated the birth of their first child, Evelyne, last month and they were carrying her around SPBGMA on Saturday.
And then it was time to pick! Mo teamed up with a number of hot young bluegrass pickers down by the workout room behind the restaurant on the hotel’s main floor. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d think it was just another jammer in jeans and a baseball cap playing that grass. John Meyer was on banjo with Mo’s brother Blake on bass, and Gaven Largent from Blue Highway on reso-guitar. They laid down the mash for about 45 minutes and streamed it all on Facebook.
And later, one more song…
And here is his latest country single, which he wrote with Dean Dillon and Phil O’Donnell…
Country music may be where Mo Pitney makes his fortune, but bluegrass has the first and earliest claim on their extraordinary young man. Go Mo!
