And I knew I had a lot of work to do to keep up.” I thought it was just that old foot stomping traditional stuff, so I was surprised to hear this. “And I’d never seen that side of bluegrass. “Everybody in the band were virtuosos,” he says.
Cinderella was my favorite band before I met these guys.” But that kind of angular perspective was more in tune with The Steeldrivers than he could have known, and his initiation into bluegrass infused a convert’s zeal into his performances. “The only bluegrass I’d heard was couch pickin’ at my grandparents’ house, and I wasn’t into it, to be completely honest. “I was pretty fresh to bluegrass,” Kelvin says.
It wasn’t easy, but one day, says Tammy Rogers, “My daughter found him on YouTube.” This designee was bound to be unconventional, and he was, a 25-year-old rock and roll singer from Berea, KY named Kelvin Damrell. They wanted to keep their cards close to the vest, and they weren’t looking for a mainstream bluegrass singer. The search for a new singer after Gary Nichols was trickier. The band, made of sturdier stuff than one voice or part, called on Truitt to play mandolin. Henderson stepped aside as well, with many things on his plate. In a story now well-known, Stapleton hit a streak of rocket-ride success as a solo country artist, and the Steeldrivers resolved to continue on, maintaining the overall soul-grass feeling of that founding voice without hiring a clone. Some casual get-togethers with Bailey, Fleming and Rogers led to a run of shows, a deal with historic Rounder Records and critical acclaim. That happened in 2005 when Nashville veteran Mike Henderson and Stapleton, a young gun on Music Row, had co-written a batch of songs that felt right for bluegrass instrumentation. They were bringing their instrumental, vocal and songwriting skills to various bands, ad hoc gigs, picking parties and recording sessions long before The Steeldrivers first came together.
Richard Bailey (banjo), Tammy Rogers (fiddle), Mike Fleming (bass) and Brent Truitt (mandolin) have been musical colleagues and friends for more than three decades, which is to say nearly all of their adult lives. But this was a unique, highly resilient band, rooted in the kind of mutual respect that only many years of personal history can forge.
#Mud river mandolin how to#
With a second singer on his way out in eight years, there were questions about how to go forward, if they could at all. Negotiating the transition from the magisterial soul country voice of band co-founder Chris Stapleton to Nichols had taken work and perseverance, but it had led to the most cohesive, impactful Steeldrivers to date. Then just when the follow-up album was coming together, vocalist and guitar player Gary Nichols decided he needed to go his own way. Industry recognition and better bookings followed. The Grammy validated the vision and collective striving of a string band with a rock and soul heart. For the band though, as well as its passionate audience of Steelheads, it was a much bigger deal. In bluegrass and acoustic music circles, respect for this Nashville quintet is so strong that the win seemed somehow inevitable, like a box being checked off. The band’s 2015 release, The Muscle Shoals Recordings, won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. You can hear an audio version of this tune on John & Heidi's 2013 recording, " Stay on the Farm".Īn Adobe Acrobat version of the Mountain Dulcimer TABĬlick Here for an Adobe Acrobat version of the Autoharp TAB.Ĭlick Here for a n MIDI version of the basic tune.Bad For You, the fifth album from Nashville’s hard-edged bluegrass band The Steeldrivers, arrives after a period of triumph and adaptation.
#Mud river mandolin free#
Feel free to fill in those dotted quarter notes with some light strums to give it a lilting waltz feel. The third part of the tune modulates to the key of G, but then goes back to the first and second sections in D. Here's an old parlor piano piece written in 1877 that was originally in Eb, but transposed here for autoharp and mountain Dulcimer to the key of D.
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