With the arrival of spring, all the best that life offers is at our fingertips. Fragrant flowers are on display, and love is in the air. The days are getting longer, and soon, outdoor bluegrass festivals will dominate the musical landscape.
And they are playing baseball again! It may still be a bit chilly in some of the parks, but our long, lovely, national obsession with bats and balls is underway for 2019, as sure a sign as we get that life goes on after the cold, dark winter.
The magic of spring isn’t lost on Tim and Dennis Crouch. These two Nashville-based pickin’ bros have a new single that celebrates the great American pastime. It’s Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer’s vaudeville classic, Take Me Out To The Ball Game, done up in a string swing style with bluegrass instruments. Their sprightly version is sure to bring on a jolly mood, and get the sap flowing in even the oldest fan.
Tim is on fiddle and Dennis on bass, with Glen Duncan on slap rhythm guitar, and Noam Pikelny on National resonator body banjo.
There’s not much in bluegrass to beat Rob McCoury putting the smack down on a Ralph Stanley banjo tune, and that’s what we get in the second single from Tim Crouch and Dennis Crouch, Holiday Pickin’.
Tim and Dennis are working with Rural Rhythm Records and the Engelhardt Music Group on a new album. Tim’s on fiddle, and Dennis on bass, and they have brought in a bevy of their Nashville buddies to flesh out the new project.
Holiday Pickin’ was originally recorded by The Stanley Brothers just over 60 years ago, when they signed with Starday/King Records. It was the first one they cut for their new label, recorded at the station where they were working at the time, WCYB in Bristol, TN.
Rob does Ralph proud, with help from Rob Ickes on reso-guitar, Casey Campbell on mandolin, Cody Kilby on guitar, and Tim and Dennis on fiddle and bass respectively.
The single is available now wherever you stream or purchase music online, and to radio programmers at AirPlay Direct.
Rural Rhythm Records has released a first single for their upcoming project for Tim Crouch and Dennis Crouch, produced in collaboration with Engelhardt Music Group in Nashville.
The Arkansas brothers are veteran grassers of many years, Tim on the fiddle and Dennis on bass. Between the two of them, the Crouch brothers have worked for just about everyone who has passed through Nashville. Tim got his start fiddling with Jim & Jesse as a Virginia Boy when he was just 19 years old, and has since added his bow work to country and bluegrass records for everyone from Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss to Dierks Bentley and Charlie Pride.
Dennis quickly made a mark when he moved to Nashville by co-founding the side project group, The Time Jumpers, who continue to crank out high quality country and western swing music in Music City. He’s also played with most every bluegrass outfit in town, and has recorded with Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Johnny Cash, and Ralph Stanley among many others including Tim O’Brien, Peter Rowan, Dale Ann Bradley, and Darrell Scott.
The two graduates of the Crouch Family band have gotten together to record an album of instrumental bluegrass, with help from some Nashville super pickers. Scott Vestal is on banjo, Cody Kilby on guitar, and Casey Campbell on mandolin.
This first single is a Bill Monroe-style fiddle tune, Kentucky Turnpike, written by Tim with producer and Englehart partner Glen Duncan, who likes the imagery the tune evokes.
“I wrote Kentucky Turnpike with Tim Crouch. I’ve always loved twin-fiddle songs where the two fiddles playing together tell one story. That’s what Tim and I are doing with Kentucky Turnpike.
When we got the song finished, it sounded to me like racing down a dark Kentucky highway late at night in a powerful rainstorm with the windshield wipers going full blast and the headlights cutting through the driving rain.”
Kentucky Turnpike is available as a single now wherever you download or stream your favorite music, and to radio programmers at AirPlay Direct.
For the past few weeks, a song from Aubrey Haynie’s 2000 Sugar Hill album, A Man Must Carry On, has been featured as the musical bed for a Subaru commercial airing on national television in the US.
The song is a Haynie original, Happy Go Lucky, that features him on mandolin and fiddle, with Bryan Sutton on guitar, Jerry Douglas on resonator guitar, Dennis Crouch on bass, and Kenny Malone on percussion.
One of the most popular television series of the 1970s and 1980s was Little House on the Prairie, depicting the lives of the Ingalls family, settlers in late 1800s Minnesota. Fans of the show may remember Charles Ingalls, or “Pa,” occasionally playing the fiddle for his family. The real-life Charles Ingalls was actually an accomplished fiddler, and in the book series which inspired the television show, his daughter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, documented 127 separate tunes that she remembered him playing.
The Pa’s Fiddle Project, led by Vanderbilt University musicologist Dale Cockrell, is currently attempting to shine new light on each of these songs. Since 2005, the project has released three albums featuring music from the Little House on the Prairie books. The most recent of these is Pa’s Fiddle: Charles Ingalls, American Fiddler.
Pa’s Fiddle contains 17 tracks pulled from instances in the series when Pa is recorded playing the fiddle unaccompanied. The majority of the tunes are performed by the Pa’s Fiddle Band, featuring Shad Cobb (banjo, fiddle), Matt Combs (fiddle), Dennis Crouch (bass), Matt Flinner (mandolin), Buddy Greene (harmonica), Bryan Sutton (guitar), and Jeff Taylor (accordion, pennywhistle, and piano). The album includes both familiar traditional songs, such as Buffalo Gals, Polly Put the Kettle On, and When Johnny Comes Marching Home, as well as more obscure hymns and fiddle tunes.
The album’s liner notes provide excellent background information on each song featured within this compilation. Written by Cockrell, the notes not only share the book from which the track is drawn, but also give historical information and composers of the tunes where known. This helps to give the listener a fuller perspective of each song, in addition to demonstrating the depth of Pa’s knowledge of fiddle tunes. It is interesting to note that one song on the album has been included simply on an assumption. The upbeat song Yellow Heifer is not actually mentioned in any of the books. Instead, a song named Red Heifer was mentioned in Little House in the Big Woods, and because no other record of that song exists, the producers chose to include a similar tune which was originally performed in the area close to where Pa was born.
Some songs on the album are lively dance tunes performed in an old-time style, such as Buffalo Gals and Yellow Heifer. Another is Boatman’s Dance, which includes a great bluegrass-style guitar break from David Grier and fiddle from both Matt Combs and Joe Weed. Other songs are slower, with a sweeter, more sensitive feel. Mary of the Wild Moor is a tender tune featuring the interesting addition of accordion, while Golden Years are Passing By is a very delicate and touching song. Several tunes have a Scottish background, including The Campbells are Coming, which is given a great Celtic treatment here.
Pa’s Fiddle is more than just a new album full of traditional tunes. It is a great addition to historical research on old-time music, connecting history, literature, and music in one noteworthy package. You can find more information on the album and the Pa’s Fiddle Project online. The album can be purchased from the website or downloaded from iTunes or E-Music.
The music is also featured in a new PBS special, Pa’s Fiddle: The Music of America, which will be aired during PBS’s upcoming pledge drive and available for purchase on DVD and CD on July 31.
Richmond,VA photographer, and banjo pick aficionado, Dean Hoffmeyer captured a few images from Vince Gill’s 2012 bluegrass tour when they stopped at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond last night.
Joining Vince were Jim Mills on banjo, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Dennis Crouch on bass and Jeff White on guitar. Sarah Jarosz opened the show and returned for a grand finale.
Vince Gill will once again be embarking on an acoustic bluegrass tour this summer, with an all-star cast in tow.
Starting in mid-June, Gill has shows scheduled throughout the southern and central US with Jim Mills on banjo, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Jeff White on guitar, and Dennis Crouch on bass. Vince will play mandolin and guitar, and handle the lead vocals. Sarah Jarosz will open for Gill for the first part of the tour (6/13-23).
Serious bluegrass fans know that long before he became a country music star, Vince toiled in the bluegrass hinterlands, and his passion for the music remains strong.
“After the passing of Earl Scruggs, it means the world to me to do these dates with this world-class band playing the music that Earl defined. I absolutely adore this music.”
Here are the tour dates and locations:
June 13 – Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA
June 14 – Alabama Theatre, North Myrtle Beach, SC
June 15 and June 16 – The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
June 17 – Knight Theater, Charlotte, NC
June 21 – Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN
June 22 – Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, GA
June 23 – Anderson Music Hall, Hiawassee, GA
June 24 – Durham Performing Arts Center, Durham, NC
June 28 – ROMP, Owensboro, KY
June 29 – Lexington Opera House, Lexington, KY
June 30 – Honeywell Center, Wabash, IN
You can find more tour details and ticket information online.
On Jan 6, artists from many genres will come together at the Loveless Barn in Nashville, TN, to celebrate an unsung American fiddle hero, Charles Ingalls.
Yes, that Charles Ingalls, father of Laura Ingalls-Wilder. It is a widely known, but often forgotten fact that Mr. Ingalls played the fiddle. In her Little House on the Prairie books, Mrs. Wilder documents what songs her father played, where he played them, and why he picked those tunes. This makes him one of the most well documented American fiddlers in the 19th century.
The concert this week will feature songs from the album Pa’s Fiddle: Charles Ingalls, American Fiddler, the brain-child of Vanderbilt University Musicology professor, Dale Cockrell. After reading the Little House on the Prairie books to his son, Cockrell felt that the stories seemed incomplete without a soundtrack of the fiddle music.
Featured performers at the show will include: Randy Travis, Rodney Atkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ashton Shepherd, Natalie Grant, and Sing Off champions Committed. The house string band for the concert will feature Matt Combs, Dennis Crouch, Chad Cromwell, Hoot Hester, and Shad Cobb, and will directed by none other than Randy Scruggs. The show will be taped in front of a live audience, set to air during PBS pledge drives in June.
The album itself had three producers, Cockrell, Joe Weed, and fiddler Matt Combs. The musicians on the recording include a who’s who of acoustic music: Matt Combs, Weed, Dennis Crouch, Matt Flinner, Shad Cobb, Buddy Greene, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Taylor, Derek Jones, and David Grier. The album is available for pre-release on Cockrell’s website www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com, and will be officially released on June 5th.
This recording is the third in a series of projects to feature music from the writings of Laura Ingalls-Wilder. It is an interesting footnote to American history and literature. I can just hear Pa’s fiddle ringing throughout the hills of Walnut Grove!
Awards season has begun for the the Academy of Country Music.
In addition to the nominations announced on Tuesday for all the glittery pop stars, a list of “lesser lights” was quietly passed out. This includes musicians, producers, engineers, radio hosts, promoters and venues. The winners of the ACM MBI Awards (Musicians/Bandleaders/Instrumentalists) are not recognized during the televised broadcast on April 18, but feted at an ACM Honors in the fall. They are typically announced prior to the program, however.
As is often the case, a number of names familiar to bluegrass fans pop up in the list. Stuart Duncan and Deanie Richardson are both nominated as Top Fiddle Player Of The Year, Bryan Sutton is nominated for Top Guitar Player Of The Year, and Dennis Crouch for Top Bass Player Of The Year. Bryan is also nominated for Top Specialty Instrument Of The Year, as is Randy Scruggs.
Buddy Cannon received a Poducer Of The Year nomination. He is not a specifically bluegrass producer, though he has been involved in the production of the music of his daughter, Melonie Cannon.
