« view all artists
The Steeldrivers
Guest Artist
The SteelDrivers are Chris Stapleton, guitar/vocals; Tammy Rogers, fiddle/vocals; Mike Henderson, mandolin/vocals; Mike Fleming, bass/vocals; and Richard Bailey, banjo. A group of seasoned veterans-each distinguished in his or her own right, each valued in the town's commercial community-who are seizing an opportunity to follow their hearts to their souls' reward. In doing so, they are braiding their bluegrass roots with new threads of their own design, bringing together country, soul, and other contemporary influences to create an unapologetic hybrid that is old as the hills but fresh as the morning dew. This is new music with the old feeling. SteelDrivers fan Vince Gill describes the band's fusion as simply "an incredible combination."
The band's self-titled debut album was released in January 2008 by Rounder Records. Fans and industry insiders took note, recognizing the project with a Grammy® nomination and three International Bluegrass Music Association nominations. The group's music resonates with classic bluegrass soul while exploring entirely modern lyrical and harmonic byways. The blistering, soulful vocals of guitarist and songwriter Stapleton immediately announce that this is dark and dangerous terrain, which the SteelDrivers' proudly rugged ensemble playing quickly confirms. Fiddler and harmony singer Rogers knows just when to lay off the notes and let the tone take over, while banjo player Bailey neatly segues from cold modal Stanley-style passages to incisive melodic turns. Henderson and Fleming are the SteelDrivers' engine room, laying out the sparse, driving rhythm on which hangs the songs, mostly co-composed by Stapleton and Henderson.
The SteelDrivers' brand of bluegrass - intense, dark, poetic, and inescapably human - is a refreshing reminder of the timeless power of stringband music, and is captured perfectly on The SteelDrivers. Its songs grapple with classic themes of regret, love, and redemption, from the escalating prison lament of "Midnight Train to Memphis" to the chilling murderer's plea encapsulated in "If It Hadn't Been for Love." "East Kentucky Home" is a timeless traditional bluegrass lament, with its strains of homesickness, loss, and abandonment, but ingeniously reinvented with off-kilter rhythmic accents and a decidedly contemporary chord progression.
The willingness to set aside the unspoken rules that ruthlessly govern bluegrass set the SteelDrivers apart from the innumerable faceless acts vying for the bluegrass spotlight.
Latest CD
Reckless