Pitney Meyer, the new bluegrass outfit consisting of Mo Pitney and John Meyer, has announced a new single, Bear Creek Clay, and pre-order availability for their debut album, Cherokee Pioneer, set for release on Curb Records in April.
Pitney, who has enjoyed considerable success as a country singer, explained his love for bluegrass, and his happiness in getting to play it again.
“My first introduction to being overjoyed with music is with bluegrass. Jimmy Martin, Tony Rice, Larry Sparks, Del McCoury. Now, it’s like the best of all worlds with John and I being able to come out here and have songs that we’ve written, stories that mean something to us, but sounds like the old joyful, child-like bluegrass that we grew up loving.”
Bear Creek Clay is the third single to drop, and the first with Meyer taking the high lead vocal. Written by Danielle Yother, John Meyer, and Mo Pitney, it’s a hard-charging grasser with a story of adventure, primarily sung in three part harmony.
John describes why he likes this song, and the music he and Mo are making together.
“This form of music is inherently nostalgic. But it can’t only be nostalgia. There has to be something fresh, there has to be something from your heart. What’s your story? How do you tell that?
I really think that’s what’s been happening with this music, and that’s why it’s been resonating with us and with others. We wanted to make music that’s defined by the music. This project is about connecting with people, honoring the past, and sharing what’s in our hearts.”
Like the full album, this one was tracked live in the studio with Mo on guitar and John on banjo, along with Nate Burie on mandolin, Jenee Fleenor on fiddle, and Blake Pitney on bass.
Have a listen…
Bear Creek Clay is available now from popular download and streaming services online, and to radio programmers via AirPlay Direct. Pre-orders for Cherokee Pioneer are likewise enabled ahead of its April 18 release.
Kimberly Williams, owner and chief publicist with East Public Relations – certainly one of the most celebrated and effective publicity people in bluegrass – has announced that she is now also handling booking representation for Pitney Meyer. This is the relatively new group fronted by country and bluegrass artist Mo Pitney alongside banjo player and vocalist John Meyer.
Both men grew up in family bluegrass groups, and while both dissolved as all the siblings got older, Mo has seen his star rise in country music since 2014 with songs like Country, Boy & and a Girl Thing, Local Honey, and Mattress on the Floor getting attention from country radio and print media. His obvious sincerity and rich singing voice won fans for Mo wherever country music is played, with many unaware of his bluegrass roots, unless they had seen him on stage.
John had all but given up the music business, moving away from Nashville after finding success with his brothers and sister as Meyer Band, and working with Jimmy Fortune and others. But after he and Mo became friends, they also developed into songwriting partners, and when they realized they had written an album’s worth of bluegrass music, it only made sense to record it, and Pitney’s label, Curb Records, is going to release it in 2025.
So while Mo continues to book his country dates, he has also carved out time for Pitney Meyer, and they will be out in support of the new record, Cherokee Pioneer, next year with a bluegrass group including Nate Burie on mandolin, Mo’s brother Blake Pitney on bass, and a rotating cast of fiddlers.
Mo and John had already chosen Kimberly Williams to handle their publicity, as she has been doing for Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out, Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, and her husband, Blake Williams, when they tempted her to step back into a booking role, something she hadn’t done since the Williams & Clark Expedition broke up some time ago.
Kimberly explains a bit about how it happened.
“Pitney Meyer has an incredible album set to release in April 2025 on Curb Records, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Since June, I’ve had the privilege of working with them as their publicist, but the chance to step into a new role didn’t present itself until a couple of months ago when they sought my advice on booking. Over the past six months, as I’ve gotten to know Mo and John, I’ve been deeply moved by their genuine love for bluegrass, and their thoughtful approach to sharing their music with the world.
To be honest, I never imagined I’d add booking agent back to my resume—especially after stepping away from that role 11 years ago when I was booking for my own band. The industry has shifted so much since then. But I couldn’t ignore the persistent nudge I felt to take this step, and I truly believe God led me to this opportunity.
Working alongside Mo, John, and their manager, Daniel Kohavi, has been an unexpected blessing, one that’s brought me so much joy. I’m incredibly excited to help share their talent with as many people as possible and to see how their music touches hearts in the way only bluegrass can.”
If you want to bring Mo Pitney and John Meyer, aka, Pitney Meyer, in for a festival or concert, reach out to East Public Relations to make arrangements.
Mo Pitney and John Meyer, aka Pitney Meyer, have released another single from their upcoming Curb Records project, Cherokee Pioneer.
The two good friends grew up learning to play and sing bluegrass in their separate family bands. After finding success in the country music world, they have rekindled that early passion for bluegrass with a set of songs they have written together in recent years. The process finds them embracing old school methods, tracking everything live with no overdubs to analog tape in an old wooden cabin.
This latest is one called Trail of Tears, one Mo started in a moment of inspiration considering the forced removal of native peoples in the US during the early to mid 19th century, colloquially known as the Trail of Tears. The fate of these peoples since the arrival of European settlers in the Americas became a theme running through this forthcoming record.
Pitney says that these thoughts took the form of question in his mind.
“During the time period of writing this song, I had been in a season where I was deeply moved by the story of the Native American people, and felt my spirit asking the question: What does the gospel have to say to that story now? It was in that place I started to feel a song being sung to me, and from the deepest part of my heart, rather loudly, I began to sing ‘on the trail of tears, hear the voice, of the Cherokee who’s crying in the wilderness.'”
In a bit of divine coincidence, John reached out to Mo while the song was being completed.
“I was up around Licking, Missouri on a side-by-side, literally riding down a ridge that was once part of the Trail of Tears. I texted Mo and he kind of freaked out because he had just been feeling this song.
The first time we performed the song was out in Bon Aqua at the Johnny Cash farm. There are stories that Cash used to walk down by the creek behind the cabin and find old arrowheads and native pottery. It was poignant to hear the song first come to life on that property.”
The Cherokee Pioneer album was recorded in Johnny Cash’s Bon Aqua cabin, something that wasn’t lost on these two.
The track features Pitney on guitar and lead vocal, Meyer on banjo and harmony vocal, with Blake Pitney on bass and harmony vocal, Nate Burie on mandolin, and Jeneé Fleenor on fiddle.
Curb Records has a new single today for Pitney Meyer, the bluegrass act built around country and bluegrass sensation Mo Pitney and his fellow singer/songwriter and banjo player John Meyer.
The two friends met in the bluegrass world, and have spent the past several years writing music together. At first they did it just because they enjoyed it, but as time went on, they realized they had an album’s worth of strong material. So Mo reached out to Curb Records, with whom he has a country music recording contract, to see if they would be interested in getting behind it.
They jumped on board, so John and Mo assembled a band and started recording, live to tape, capturing the actual sessions on video as well. It’s a nice change of pace at a time when so much music is being recorded with some of the players never meeting face to face. Pitney Meyer tracked to analog tape in a 19th century hand built log cabin in Bon Aqua, TN, and we can see one of the results today with the release of Old Friend.
It’s a song the two good friends wrote together with Wyatt McCubbin, about a lifelong friendship that means the world to both parties. Though it may not have started out that way, the song perfectly captures the close relationship that John and Mo have shared together. But not to worry… their wives are both cool with it.
Pitney says that recording this project together is an ideal reflection of their deep affection for each other.
“I think the only way I could share with people how much John’s friendship means to me, is to make this record. I really believe that there’s people that live and die that have never had a friend. I just really feel honored to say that I have a friend.”
With Mo on guitar and lead vocal, and John on banjo and singing harmony, the track also feature Ivy Phillips on fiddle, Nate Burie on mandolin, and Blake Pitney on bass.
Old Friend is a lovely slow ballad, sung impeccably by Pitney and Meyer, with just the right sort of sparse accompaniment. It’s a perfect fit for bluegrass radio, and the sort of song that traditional country fans dream of hearing on the air again.
For several years now, bluegrass lovers have watched country artist Mo Pitney’s casual forays into grass and thought, “I sure would love to hear him dedicated to that kind of sound.”
The winsome, talented vocalist grew up in bluegrass, playing in a family band with his dad and brother, but took the Nashville country route when the opportunity was presented, signing with Curb Records in 2014. Still his natural affinity for bluegrass, and his deep love for the music, has found him dipping a toe in those waters from time to time, most recently singing bass with Darrin & Brooke Aldridge on their delightful cut of Jordan with Ricky Skaggs.
It’s a similar sort of story with John Meyer, a skillful multi-instrumentalist and singer who also grew up in a family band with his siblings. The Meyer Band was something of a sensation when they were all in their teens, wowing audiences with their precision and soulful covers of bluegrass favorites. As a young adult, John took a gig supporting Jimmy Fortune of Statler Brothers fame, and put himself forward as a singer/songwriter, though the grass still flowed in his veins.
Being of a similar age, Mo and John’s paths crossed on the bluegrass scene, and the two became fast friends. YouTube has many examples of the two of them cutting on some grass with other young Nashville pickers, and their SPBGMA jams are the stuff of legend. But it was when they started writing together that the spark really exploded.
This week comes word that the two have a new album together as Pitney Meyer, with Curb Records, an all bluegrass project recorded live in the studio. The bulk of the songs were written by Mo and John, with only a single cover on the record.
Today their first single hits, one called That Sounds Lonesome, a Pitney Meyer original which, like the rest of this album, was tracked live to analog tape with no overdubs.
Mo said that they were determined to record this way, like the old days.
“It was all cut with a core band, five piece. Nate Burie was on mandolin and harmony vocal, Jenee Fleenor or Ivy Phillips on fiddle, and my brother Blake on bass. That comes down to the way we recorded, no overdubs, completely live.
The vinyl LP will never have been touched by a computer!”
The recordings were made inside a hand hewn 19th century log cabin once owned by Johnny Cash in Bon Aqua, TN. All the sessions were also captured in a two camera video shoot, so that a live studio video of each new single can be released before the album hits in 2025.
And so we have this first look at That Sounds Lonesome.
Speaking with John and Mo a few weeks ago, we got to talking about the fact that Curb Records, a major player since the 1960s in the music business, was to release an all bluegrass album like this. Some readers may recall that they had greenlit a cover ofOld Home Place on Mo’s previous country project, and were very pleased with the reaction.
Mo said that they are fully on board, and excited to promote it.
“Working with Curb up to this point, they have been very open to the creative process. When I come with a great deal of heart to a process, they tend to go along with my instincts. Sierra and Rebecca in their A&R department were very open to this.
John is free to keep doing his singer/songwriter thing, and I’ll keep doing my country thing.”
And John said that a situation opened up for them to make a very powerful appeal to the label when artist Sam Hunt asked them to open for him at the Ryman Auditorium.
“Mo and I have been doing a few shows at the Station Inn, and we thought, ‘we need to invite them all down to the Station,’ but as it happened we got to invite them all down to the Ryman.”
Pitney Meyer is also planning to be touring heavily in support of the new album, both this year and next. Curb is planning to release new singles, with video, every eight weeks leading up to the album drop next year.
Mo tells us that the bluegrass thing will be his top priority.
“There will be other shows that are played, but I know that having this record come out, the biggest push will be playing festivals and shows with Pitney Meyer, both at bluegrass and country events.”
On tour Pitney Meyer will include much of the core group from the studio, with Mo on guitar, John on banjo, Nate Burie on mandolin, Blake Pitney on bass, and a rotating cast of fiddlers.
They will be performing primarily the music from the album, which draws heavily on their own compositions.
John ran down where those songs had derived.
“I think Mo and I wrote seven songs on the record, there’s a cover, Darryl Miller wrote two songs, and Mo wrote one with Darryl. Wyatt McCubbin wrote another, and Nate wrote one.”
