Uncle Earl, the all-female old time band making such a splash at bluegrass festivals this summer, is featured in the Breaking & Entering column in the August 10 edition of Billboard magazine. This recurring feature offers a glimpse at acts breaking into radio or retail, or entering the Billboard charts for the first time – hence the name.
The article contains a nice profile of the band and their music, but is primarily focused on the fact that their debut CD on Rounder, She Waits For Night, entered the Billboard bluegrass chart on August 6 at number 7 and moves up one spot in the current chart this week.
Guitarist Kristin Andreassen offers a look at the band’s approach:
“We think of ourselves as old-time musicians,” she says. “And in our world, old-time music is pretty different from bluegrass music. Bluegrass focuses on instruments taking breaks, and we don’t really take breaks. ‘Walking in My Sleep,’ the first song on the album, is a popular bluegrass song, so it makes total sense that we’re on the bluegrass chart, but we play it in an old-timey way. Nobody comes out and takes a mandolin solo or a fiddle solo, we all just play right through and create a group.”
Read the whole article here.
