When He Calls My Name video debut from Alan Bibey & Grasstowne

Gospel bluegrass has been very good to Alan Bibey & Grasstowne this past few years, probably because they are so good at playing and singing it. Their cut of Gonna Rise and Shine won the Gospel Recording of the Year in 2020 at the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards, and it sat atop our Bluegrass Today Gospel Weekly airplay chart for much of the year.

They have been nominated again this year in that same category for a cut from their first album with Billy Blue Records, Hitchhiking To California. The track in question is When He Calls My Name, and the band has a new music video we are happy to debut today.

Bibey tells us that he feels a bit overwhelmed seeing their name on the list of Gospel nominees again in 2021.

“Having just won the Gospel Recording of the Year award last year for Gonna Rise and Shine, we feel so honored to be included in the final round again this year. We are just humbled to be mentioned alongside some of our dear friends and labelmates in a category that means so much to us.

We had a lot of fun shooting this video for When He Calls My Name, and we are grateful for all the help we had on it from Jerry Salley and everyone at Billy Blue Records, as well as my cousin, co-writer Ronnie Bowman. We are really pleased with how well it turned out and we hope it’ll be a blessing to folks out there.”

The video finds Bibey on mandolin and lead vocal, supported by his Grasstowne bandmates Justin Jenkins on banjo, Zak McLamb on bass, Tony Watt on guitar, and Kati Penn on fiddle. Watch as they play through the song in a old barn. How perfectly bluegrass!

Alan and Grasstowne are nominated in the prestigious Song Of The Year category as well this year for the title track, another that spent considerable time at #1 on our Bluegrass Today weekly airplay chart.

“We are also so thankful to have been included in the Song Of The Year category this year with the title track of our latest album, Hitchhiking to California. It’s truly just an honor to have made it to the final five for such a competitive award, and we thank the IBMA voters for supporting this song. We are really excited for Wes Golding, who originally wrote this tune. He has long been a hero of ours. We are also very proud of the video for Hitchhiking to California. It’s more of a story-type than a straight performance-type video, and we are just tickled with how well it came out!”

Here’s a look back at that one as well.

Best of luck to Grasstowne and all the other nominees for 2021!

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.