Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Sam Bush, along with his band, will return to the Historic Earle Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 12, in a show set to begin at 7:30 pm. The show is part of the Surry Arts Council’s Blue Ridge and Beyond Series. The Earle is the halfway point on Bush’s 2022 tour with 28 dates spanning through September.
An originator of the progressive bluegrass movement, often called the “Father of Newgrass,” and member of the ground-breaking band New Grass Revival, Bush is an International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame member, four-time Mandolin Player of the Year, and a multi-Grammy winner.
Bush first came to acclaim as a teen fiddler, when he was a three-time national champion in the junior division of the National Old-time Fiddler’s Contest. He recorded an instrumental album, Poor Richard’s Almanac as a high school senior and in the spring of 1970 attended the Fiddlers Convention in Union Grove. There he heard the New Deal String Band, taking notice of their rock-inspired brand of progressive bluegrass.
Bush joined Ebo Walker and Lonnie Peerce in the Bluegrass Alliance. Bush played guitar in the group, then began playing mandolin after recruiting guitarist Tony Rice to the fold. Following a fallout with Peerce in 1971, Bush and the remaining band members formed the New Grass Revival, issuing the band’s debut album the same year. Walker left soon after, replaced temporarily by Butch Robins, with the quartet solidifying around the arrival of bassist John Cowan.
New Grass Revival was hired by Leon Russell as his supporting act on his 1973 tour, issued five albums in their first seven years, and eventually became Leon Russell’s backing band. New Grass Revival reached new heights with a three-record contract with Capitol Records and a conscious turn to the country market but at their pinnacle called it quits. Bush then worked the next several years with Emmylou Harris’ Nash Ramblers, Lyle Lovett, and toured with the Flecktones.
After a quarter-century of making music with New Grass Revival and collaborating with other bands, Bush went solo. He has released seven albums and a live DVD over the past two decades. In 2009, the Americana Music Association awarded Bush the Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist.
“With this band I have now I am free to try anything. Looking back at the last 50 years of playing newgrass, with the elements of jazz improvisation and rock and roll, jamming, playing with New Grass Revival, Leon, and Emmylou; it’s a culmination of all of that,” said Bush. “I can unapologetically stand onstage and feel I’m representing those songs well.”
Tickets for the Feb. 12 show in Mount Airy are $55-$80 and are available online at www.surryarts.org, via phone at 336-786-7998, or at the Surry Arts Council office at 218 Rockford Street. For additional information, call the Surry Arts Council at 336-786-7998 or contact marianna@surryarts.org.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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