Béla Fleck, Billy Strings, and Michael Cleveland at The Ryman (1/8/22) – photo © Jesse Borrell
This morning Béla Fleck has announced the upcoming release of a new recording, Live Heart: My Bluegrass Heart at the Ryman, and dropped a music video from the performance on January 8, 2022 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium where the album was captured.
Live Heart is a large-scale project, encompassing three LPs or two CDs, arriving October 16 from Thirty Tigers Records. And Fleck embarks on an extensive, all-star tour in support October 8.
My Bluegrass Heart, first released in 2021, was Béla’s return to acoustic bluegrass music, where his particular musical genius was first developed in the 1970s. It featured new compositions of Fleck’s, supported by the best of the best in bluegrass: Sam Bush, Michael Cleveland, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, David Grisman, Sierra Hull, Edgar Meyer, Tony Trischka, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, Mark Schatz, and Chris Thile among them.
Since that time he has performed with variations of that cast at festivals and concerts around the country, but the Live Heart recordings came from the energy of that first tour. Thile had been set to appear at the Ryman show on that date, but winter weather prevented him traveling to Nashville.
Béla said that the blizzard seemed to provide a special setting for the concert.
“We somehow managed to take and own the stage that night. My amazing peers, friends, and iconic performers really brought the fire—I’m very proud to bring you this fantastic live performance.”
To prove it, he and Thirty Tigers has released this live video from the show, their take on the Jimmy Martin classic, Tennessee, sung by Billy Strings, which Béla says closed a circle for him.
“As a New York City kid who fell in love with Davy Crockett and had my own coonskin cap and fringe jacket, this song called out to me when I first heard Jimmy Martin’s classic version. I even moved to Tennessee and have lived there longer than my NYC days. There’s an amazing sense of closure to playing it live with Billy Strings taking Jimmy’s lead role, and the top players in the biz bringing their talent and depth of understanding of bluegrass to the table.”
Billy shared his own encomium for the banjo wizard.
“In my opinion, Béla Fleck is one of the most important musicians of all time. He bridges the gap between bluegrass, classical, jazz, world music, and everything in between. It seems like there’s no limit to what he can achieve on the banjo.”
Tennessee has its own all-star cast. Joining Béla and Billy are Tony Trischka on banjo, Michael Cleveland and Stuart on fiddle, Bryan Sutton and Molly Tuttle on guitar, Sam Bush and Sierra Hull on mandolin, Jerry Douglas and Justin Moses on reso-guitar, and Edgar Meyer and Mark Schatz on bass.
Have a look and listen.
You can get Tennessee now as a single from the usual online sources, and pre-saves and pre-orders for Live Heart are likewise enabled.
You can find all the tour information on the Béla Fleck web site.
