Thanks to all who came out to New Orleans last Thursday. It was a great night and an incredible show at Tipitina's Uptown... then it was on to Indio California for Stagecoach...

After two long days and nights at Merlefest (including 5 sets on Saturday!) Sam raced back to Nashville to surprise Emmylou Harris with a performance at her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame Sunday evening. Sam performed a song, "Green Pastures" with Vince Gill, Buddy Miller, Jon Randall and Patty Griffin that brought the house down. Congratulations to our great and deserving friend Emmylou for this great honor. The show will be aired on WSM-AM on this coming Monday May the 5th at 7 PM. No word yet on if it will be archived online with them. (For those of you not in the middle Tennessee area, you may still be able to hear WSM at night. It is on 650 AM and is clear channel so it can be heard hundreds of miles away)

Now.. it is on to New Orleans on Thursday May 1st to play the world famous Tipitina's Uptown and then on to Indio California to play at the Stagecoach Festival on Saturday May 3rd. Come out and see us!

Keep an eye on our tour calendar... some great shows coming up..

First, of course, is Sam's annual trek to Merlefest. It's a great time for friends and music.. hope to see you there this week.

Next.. On May 1st a show at the world famous Tipitinas Uptown in New Orleans. If you are anywhere near.. you can not miss this show.. it will be a blast!

Then Sam and the band are jumping on a plane and traveling to an incredible music festival in Indio, CA called Stagecoach... on May 3rd.

See you On The Road!

For Immediate Release, March 18^th, 2008 ~ Sam Bush was honored yesterday with a resolution from the Commonwealth of Kentucky for his contributions to New Grass music. Sam performed two songs on the senate floor in Frankfort and was recognized for his contributions as an in-demand studio musician, and for being an integral member of the influential bands Bluegrass Alliance and New Grass Revival.

Charleston City Paper by Stratton Lawrence   Photo by Joshua Curry

Man on Fire
This Bush's approval rating is high

"You never get over the stage fright jitters," said Sam Bush (pictured right) to a packed house at the Music Hall last Thursday, a place he told City Paper he'd wanted to play since hearing Ricky Skaggs' live album recorded there. If he was nervous about kicking off his spring tour in Charleston, it didn't show in his performance. Backed by an incredibly tight band that included bass, guitar, banjo, and drums, Bush rolled through a long set that featured plenty of tracks off his new release, Laps in Seven, and many old favorites. Mark Bryan of Hootie and the Blowfish joined the band for an encore that included "Uncle Pen" and The Band's "Up On Cripple Creek," taking front and center for a melt-your-face-off electric guitar solo while the crowd sang along in unison. —Stratton Lawrence

Five live tracks have been added to the jukebox. They are all from the live dvd "On The Road"

Enjoy!

A Fusion of Diverse Sounds and Styles, With Jokes

Anyone expecting straightforward bluegrass from Jerry Douglas on dobro, Edgar Meyer on bass and Sam Bush on mandolin or fiddle got just a little bit of it on Wednesday night. At the end of the trio’s concert at Zankel Hall, the musicians breezed through a banjo tune. Before then, nearly all the music they played was poised comfortably between genres: deeply rooted in bluegrass technique but toying with the parameters and options of string-band music.

The trio’s members were as attentive to structure and sonic detail as any chamber-music ensemble, while their tunes conjured mountain music’s Celtic roots along with blues, reggae, jazz and the modes of Eastern European or Middle Eastern music. Between the exquisite compositions, they cracked jokes.

They have been making musical hybrids for a long time. Mr. Bush started his untraditional New Grass Revival in 1971, and newgrass is as good a term as any for what these musicians do in their many bands. (Among other projects, Mr. Douglas is in Union Station with Alison Krauss, and Mr. Bush tours with Lyle Lovett when not leading his own band.) Their fusions now sound cozy and natural, without flaunting their tricky structures or technical feats. On Wednesday night the melodies sang, through pensive waltzes and unhurried reels and jaunty tunes like the Irish-reggae hybrid “The Lochs of Dread.”

The technical feats are there. Where most bluegrass bassists spend their lives playing oompahs, Mr. Meyer writes himself into the counterpoint, and he often conceives his bass fiddle as a fiddle, doing everything but putting it under his chin; he maintains a light touch and nimbly bows what could be fiddle tunes, only pitched lower. In a solo piece, Mr. Douglas used the richness of his dobro so that each gleaming melody note seemed to be just peeking above a pool of chords.

The three musicians have calibrated the ways they share textures; in one piece, mandolin and dobro pinged 16th notes back and forth, perfectly staggered at top speed, and in another, a bowed drone on Mr. Meyer’s bass brought out somber resonances.

The trio played pastorales and cheerful toe-tappers, though the toe-tappers were likely to move in odd meters or keep unfurling new material. When they wanted to, the musicians could pour on the razzle-dazzle, with Mr. Bush zooming around the mandolin fretboard and Mr. Douglas playing solos that twanged and skidded and chicken-plucked. Even with its musicianly flourishes and structural embellishments, the music was down-home.

But the trio was after more than good-timey grins and thrills. Their music was thinking all the time, just not getting pretentious about it.

A great night at the Grand Old Opry. Sam did an incredible job hosting the award show and walked away with an award himself for Mandolin Player of the Year.  If you missed it live on XM... stay tuned because the show was recorded and will be re-broadcast on over 200 stations in the upoming weeks.

Check out this video clip of Ringo Starr talking about Jim McGuires new book (which of course, has some great Sam pics) and he mentions Sam.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wPOpkwqcS3o

Also.. we have no created a YouTube page for Sam Bush videos. You can go there by going to www.YouTube.com/sambushmusic

Check it out!