Mason has a particular knack for songwriting, which is evident in this one created with Charlie and Dover Chamberlain. It captures the chaotic rush of emotions that accompany the realization that you are falling in love, hence the title. In this case, it’s love of the instant variety, meeting someone and suddenly knowing that an adventure is about to begin.
The music video created by Skybone Studios in Nashville nicely draws out the lyrics in cartoon form.
The audio track finds Via on guitar and lead vocal, supported by Aaron Ramsey on mandolin, Jason Davis on banjo, Jim VanCleve on fiddle, Kyser George on guitar, and Jeff Partin on reso-guitar and bass. Nick Goad and Brooks Forsyth sing harmony.
Give it a go…
Falling is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers at AirPlay Direct.
Fresh off his three year stint with Old Crow Medicine Show, young Nashville grasser Mason Via has a new single to share from his next album with Mountain Fever Records.
A native North Carolinian, Mason grew up around the music, the son of longtime newgrass singer and songwriter Davis Via. So as soon as he finished school, Via the younger was ready to pursue music for himself. The OCMS gig came just as his first bluegrass album was released, and after being cut from American Idol at the Top 24 level. Had he been kept on the TV show he couldn’t have accepted the job with Old Crow, which has allowed him to share music with people all over the country since 2021.
Having left the band, he is focused now on his new project, with its first single called simply Falling.
Via said that he had never intended to record this as a grass cut, but is now mighty glad he did.
“I co-wrote this song with Charlie Chamberlain, who is known for co-writing on several Songs From The Road Band albums. We wrote this tune as a companion piece to Melt in the Sun (another song on the upcoming record).
This song was originally meant to be solely recorded with my psychedelic electric side project as a rock and roll party anthem. We were not planning to record it on this bluegrass album, but bassist and dobro player Jeff Partin told us it was his favorite tune from the enormous list of songs I played for him and the producer, and that made me want to add it at the last minute.
I’m glad we did because it really has that Mountain Heart newgrass drive to it, but juxtaposed with booty-shaking club dancing lyrics.”
He tracked with a killer band, including himself on guitar and lead vocal, Jason Davis on banjo, Aaron Ramsey on mandolin, Jim VanCleve on fiddle, Kyser George on guitar, and Partin on bass and reso-guitar. Brooks Forsyth and Nick Goad sang harmony.
See if you don’t agree that it makes a fine bluegrass number.
Young bluegrass singer and songwriter Mason Via has announced his departure from Old Crow Medicine Show, after spending the past three years touring and recording with the band. At the same time, he has revealed plans for a new album with Mountain Fever Records, along with a debut single, Hey Don’t Go.
Regarding all this news, Mason shared this message with all his friends and fans…
“Y’all, I’ve got some big news. I’m leaving Old Crow Medicine Show to pursue my own solo music full time. After over three years of touring, recording, and living on the bus together, it is bittersweet to say goodbye to OCMS, but I’m so excited to spread my wings and start down a new musical journey.
I have a new Americana single coming out called Hey Don’t Go, and a new bluegrass album coming out later this year on Mountain Fever Records. Im having a single release show at 3rd & Lindsley on, Friday, May 17. I’m also currently booking several shows and filling up my calendar with tour dates so that I can come and play some of this new music for you live!
If you have somewhere you would love to hear me play, please reach out and let me know! Joining Old Crow led me to new and thrilling places I’ve never been before. We played hundreds of shows together; were nominated for a Grammy and attended the Grammys; played on CBS Saturday Mornings on national TV; appeared on CMT Campfire Sessions; recorded three albums together; opened up for Luke Combs at the Eagles Stadium to 60,000 people; sang on stage with Willie Nelson more than once; toured in Europe and rocked arenas as part of C2C fest; headlined Red Rocks; headlined several festivals; played the Ryman on New Years; had a number one Americana album; filmed a documentary; played the Grand Ole Opry dozens of times; and I played with OCMS in 47 of the 50 states, along with Canada.
I also want to say, being in Old Crow has truly been an education. I’ve learned so much from being in such a successful group, and I’m forever grateful to each of my bandmates for helping me to grow as an artist during my stint in the band. Now the next step for me to continue my growth as an artist is setting out on my own and taking some of these tricks of the trade that I’ve picked up from Ketch, Morgan, Cory, Mike, Jerry, Dante, and PJ with me.
From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone on the OCMS team I’ve worked with. Y’all are like family and will continue to hold a dear place in my heart.”
The new single is one Via wrote with Barton Davies of Boy Named Banjo, about the conflicting emotions that surface when you realize that a relationship has run its course.
Or as he puts it…
“Hey Don’t Go… this song reminds me of spring time, and the seasonal shifts that surround our lives. Understanding that there are some fates too strong to question, and some paths that may fork in the process. That feeling of knowing it has been over for a while, but never wanting it to end.
In true bluegrass style, it has a light-hearted melody over a heavy-hearted story.”
Mason plays guitar and sings the lead, with support from Corey Walker on banjo, James Kee on mandolin, Mark Raddabaugh on drums, Geoff Saunders on bass, Griffin McMahon on Rhodes piano and keyboards, Lyla Portnov on harmonica, Neil Jones on pedal steel, Nate Leath on fiddle, and Charlie Chamberlain on electric guitar.
Here’s a stripped down version in this music video with Nate Leath and Joshua Quimby.
Waverly tells us that Mason pulled off a pretty nice stunt…
“Mason proposed at the top of Moore’s Knob at Hanging Rock. He had two photographers hiding at the top of the mountain, a dozen red roses, and even had the champagne glasses that my parents used for their engagement. It was so special, and I can’t wait to tell our children and grandchildren about it.”
The couple even met bluegrass cute, standing in line at Mt Airy for the fiddle competition.
Waverly picks it up from there…
“Nate Leath said that we should be friends, and we quickly became more. Mason and I have loved being able to connect through bluegrass music together throughout the years, playing innumerable gigs together, and writing songs.
Both Mason and Waverly grew up in bluegrass. Mason’s dad is David Via, who has been a bluegrass singer and songwriter most of his life, taking his son to festivals and conventions all over Virginia and North Carolina. Young Mason picked up the bug for picking and singing, as well as songwriting, and it stuck.
Waverly likewise spent her youth at conventions, growing up in eastern North Carolina. She has been a member of multiple groups, including Big Fat Gap, The Ginger Snaps, The Ragged Edge, and her own band, the Carolina Songbirds.
They have talked loosely about a wedding next winter, and will be long distance for a while, as Mason lives in Nashville and Waverly is in her second year of medical school at the University of Florida. Congratulations and best of luck to them both!
The album opens with the warm familiar voice of Dolly Parton inviting the listener in to gather for story-time. She introduces this new set of songs by spinning an educational yarn about the Appalachian Mountains (a role that Sam Elliott has played for the past two albums). Behind her voice you can hear a lonesome fiddle and banjo picking in the background, and musically accentuating every point that she makes. I personally am a fan of this theatrical element and I think that it serves as a unique opening track which adds to the concept of the band. Jubilation already has me harkening back to memories of some movie scene from Cold Mountain, Songcatcher, or O Brother Where Art Thou.
The first song, Blue Ridge Mountain Baby, is a straight ahead modern bluegrass number, reconfirming how tight the band is by showcasing their musical technicality. This track reminds me of the fast tempo partygrass spirit of the Mashville Brigade album.
The second, La La Blues, is familiar to me as a fresh and reinvented take on one of my favorite Pokey Lafarge songs. La La Blues just screams good times! This track showcases more of a jug band vibe and features really soulful singing by Barry Abernathy, and gang vocals by the rest of the band. I also particularly enjoyed the silly and good spirited mouth trumpet, which reminded me of Mountain Heart’s well known Gospel Train a cappella.
The middle portion of the album features a grand collection of dancing numbers sure enough to have you out flatfooting and swinging your partner in no time flat.
The next standout for me was Gallows Pole, a haunting yet rowdy soundscape-style track that reminds me of somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Dock Boggs, but coated with a modern bluegrass finish. This might be my favorite track on the album; I love the dynamics, the introduction of slide guitar, and Barry Abernathy delivers a powerfully emotional vocal take on this timeless ballad.
The following track, Shadow of the Pines, thins out to just Abernathy’s vocal and the acoustic guitar. This song conveys a realistic type of hurt that we have all felt, the same story of a love gone wrong, but with a profound honesty to the lyrics that makes you seriously feel the pain of the singer. The sparse instrumental presentation adds to the emotive nature of the song, and the guitar playing here is brilliantly tasteful.
The last song that wraps up the album, Brother Green, sounds very ethereal and fills the space of the bands token ballad song. It reminds me of Tim O’Brien and Riley Baugus’s rendition of I Wish My Baby Was Born from Cold Mountain. The album’s thematic sensibilities make this a great closing song. Brother Green tells of a wounded soldier fallen in battle who recollects his life before he passes and recites his last wishes. A very poignant finale to a wonderful new album by Appalachian Road Show.
Mason is the son of noted Virginia/North Carolina songwriter David Via, and a fast rising young talent in bluegrass. He says that this new track, Love Train, an optimistic look at love gone sour, was a collaboration with a pair of Nashville writer friends.
“Love Train was written with my buddies Charlie Chamberlain and Marty Dodson. Marty has a large collection of hit songs under his belt (Billy Currington, Kenny Chesney, Joe Cocker, etc.), and it was such an honor to get to write a bluegrass song with this legend. Charlie is a long-time mentor/friend of mine, and he initiated the writing session. Charlie and I have been playing this one live together at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Madison, Tennessee, whenever I’m home from tour and off the road. In this bluegrass bop, we wax poetic about how a love gone wrong is much like a train that has passed ya at the terminal, but no worries, there’s another train pulling in the station before too long.”
Via handles the guitar and lead vocals, with help from Thomas Cassell on mandolin, Alex Genova on banjo, Cody Bauer on fiddle, and Ben Sommerville on bass. Harmony vocals were provided by Nick Goad and Jacob Harbour.
It’s a fast moving grasser which perfectly suits Mason’s quirky and enjoyable delivery.
The latest is one called Gettin’ Gone, about the feeling that hits a great many young people who are raised in a rural environment, thinking that there has to be something more out there for them in the wider world. It’s funny how a few decades in the rat race often finds these same folks yearning again for the simple life. It was his father, bluegrass and acoustic performer David Via, that had him living out in the country. We’ll have to watch and see how Mason’s life goes.
He says that he was longing for a change, which he has since made, when putting this song together.
“I grew up in a very rural area, a little small town you probably haven’t heard of in North Carolina, where you have to drive 35 minutes to get to the nearest grocery store. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world growing up on the river right next to a mountain. Hiking to the top of the summit by day and skinny dippin’ by night, you know good ole country living.
I had always dreamed of taking the big plunge and chasing that neon rainbow…praying there was a pot of gold at the end waiting for me. The bright lights of the Big City were not the only pearls that caught my eye, and I was plain hungry for something more than some 9 to 5 in the same old town I was born in. The way I figured it (and still do) is that this Earth is a pretty big place, and I wasn’t going to fully experience or truly understand it by simply reading about it or watching videos.
If you have read Kerouac’s On The Road, you might get where I’m coming from here. I was seeking some kind of purpose, and when I wrote this song, I was ready to drift with the wind wherever it was bound to blow.
Gettin’ Gone pays homage to that rambling spirit, and for those like me who yearn for the grand adventure, the greater purpose might lie just beyond that county line.”
Via plays guitar and sings the lead here, supported by Thomas Cassell on mandolin, Alex Genova on banjo, Sam Weiss on fiddle, and Ben Sommerville on bass. Nick Goad and Jacob Harbour provided the harmonies.
The song, Colorado, written by Via and Thomas Cassel (mandolinist with Circus No. 9), is a high energy tune about leaving the Blue Ridge Mountains and heading to the Rockies.
Colorado features Via on guitar, Cassel on mandolin, Alex Genova (Fireside Collective) on banjo, Sam Weiss on fiddle, and Ben Somerville on bass. The instrumental portion of the song was recorded at Bee Hive Recording Studio in Johnson City, TN.
Joining lead vocalist, Via, with harmony vocals is Nick Goad (Sideline) and Jacob Harbour (formerly of Rich In Tradition). The vocal tracks were laid down at Eastwood Studio in Cana, VA.
It is the second single (Big City was the first) from his forthcoming Mountain Fever album, Poverty Line, due to be released in 2022.
The North Carolina native, who now makes his home in Nashville, shared, “It’s my favorite song on the album. I’ve been to Colorado a couple of times. I just returned from playing Red Rocks Amphitheater. It was surreal!”
Doors continue to open for the emerging artist. Via will be performing with OCMS at the Ryman auditorium, the mother church of country music, on December 30-31.
Via is making major waves this year, appearing on American Idol on ABC TV, and being named the newest member of Old Crow Medicine Show. He is also finishing up a solo project for Mountain Fever, featuring his original bluegrass music, which clearly betrays his western North Carolina heritage and the influence received from his dad, well known Tar Heel grasser, David Via.
Both the song and video express Mason’s wonder and excitement upon making the move to Nashville to pursue music full time. His winning smile will convince anyone of the sincerity of his feelings, especially the scenes of Via arriving in town. Though other artists appear with him in the video, the track features Alex Genova on banjo, Jonah Horton on mandolin, Tommy Maher on reso-guitar, Sam Wiess on fiddle, and Ben Somerville on bass.
