The Grascals have just released 'The Grascals & Friends: Country Classics With a Bluegrass Spin' through Cracker Barrel. Click their image to see some other key Cracker Barrel music releases.
Traditional bluegrass isn’t often recorded with electric instruments, and most country music doesn’t feature mandolin and banjo solos, but Terry Eldredge and the rest of The Grascals would rather pick and sing than parse definitions. The band has spent the past six years ignoring genre lines already blurred by decades of country/bluegrass interminglings from forerunners including Earl Scruggs and The Osborne Brothers.
With The Grascals’ new album, those lines continue to be blurred — and at times erased altogether. The Grascals & Friends: Country Classics With a Bluegrass Spin finds the bluegrass band making its debut on the Cracker Barrel imprint, delivering classic country songs with help from Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley (who counts Eldredge as a primary influence), Dolly Parton, Tom T. Hall, Joe Nichols, The Oak Ridge Boys, Darryl Worley and Charlie Daniels. The album is now available at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store locations.
Singing bluegrass in country settings, or performing country songs bluegrass-style, comes easily to Eldredge.
“My heroes are George Jones and (bluegrass legend) Bobby Osborne, and I’m totally influenced by both of them,” he says. “I have a lot of country in me, but my roots are in ‘grass.’ ”
Grascals member Jamie Johnson (not to be confused with country artist Jamey Johnson), says the key to melding the two sounds is attitude.
“You just get up there, smile and kick ’em right in the (posterior),” he says. “Dolly Parton told us if you open your heart to the people and have fun, they’ll open their hearts to you, and they’ll want you back.”
Formed in 2004 and the winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s top entertainer award in 2006 and 2007, The Grascals have already booked more concert dates for 2011 than the band played in 2010. The Cracker Barrel deal is one reason for that, as the store’s approach of releasing one exclusive bluegrass release per year offers something like pole position for sales and acclaim.
What Starbucks did for Norah Jones, Cracker Barrel is offering on a homier level for bluegrassers: In 2010, duo Dailey & Vincent won the IBMA’s album of the year prize and debuted at No. 19 on Billboard’s Country Albums Chart with another Cracker Barrel bluegrass/country collision, Dailey & Vincent Sing the Statler Brothers. Before that, Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Cracker Barrel exclusive, Home on the Highways, was also a hit.
“When you see people like Zac Brown and Smokey Robinson getting in line to do Cracker Barrel albums, that’s a no-brainer,” Johnson says. “Somebody’s paying attention over there. They’re not just eating chicken and dumplings, they’re buying music.”
A little help from friends
The Grascals had been interested in teaming with Cracker Barrel for years, and the end of their four-album deal with Rounder Records enabled the pairing. The band had recorded in the past with Bentley, George Jones, Hank Williams Jr., Vince Gill, Steve Wariner and other country-identified artists, and an album of collaborations seemed like a natural.
For the new disc, the group decided to augment its core mix — Eldredge and Johnson’s acoustic guitar and vocals, Terry Smith’s bass and harmonies, Danny Roberts’ vocals and mandolin, Jeremy Abshire’s fiddle and Kristin Scott Benson’s banjo and guitar — with drums, piano, electric guitar, accordion and steel guitar, all of which are more commonly associated with country than with bluegrass. They recorded basic tracks and left spaces for their all-star guests to fill in.
The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band hit “Mr. Bojangles” is recast with Joe Nichols’ buttery baritone (“The best male voice in country music since Keith Whitley,” Johnson said) forwarding the story, while Dolly Parton’s “The Pain of Loving You” offers an unusual (and pleasing) banjo/steel guitar interplay and a peppier tempo than the original.
“There’s pressure each time you do something like this,” Eldredge says. “We recorded Dolly’s ‘The Pain of Loving You’ and wondered how she’d like it.” He was well-familiar with Parton, an early supporter of the band who brought The Grascals out with her on tour in 2004. But familiarity doesn’t always breed confidence, particularly around legendary types. “One of the first things she said that day was, ‘I love this track,’ ” Eldredge adds. “That was a good thing. Then the sweat beads stopped, at least until I had to go in and sing with her.”
The Grascals wanted to be sure that she and other guests enjoyed the music. They did, and no one in the studio complained that the steel guitar-filled “I Am Strong” didn’t fit the traditional bluegrass model established by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in the 1940s, or that the swinging “Tiger by the Tail” featuring Brad Paisley didn’t follow the raw and edgy Bakersfield Sound model that marked Buck Owens’ original. Johnson says country audiences don’t mind the cross-pollination, either, even when the band brings fiddles and banjos to otherwise amped-up, multi-act festivals.
“We never get anything negative back from the fans. They love it,” Johnson says. “We don’t take a back seat to nobody, man. We’re as good as a lot of the country bands dreamed of being, we just don’t have the amplifiers to cover up our mistakes.”
Reach Peter Cooper at 615-259-8220 or pcooper@tennessean.com.
IF YOU GO
- What: 37th Annual SPBGMA Bluegrass Awards Show & 28th National Convention; the Grascals take part in Sunday's Awards Show
When: Feb. 3-6; awards show starts at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6
Where: Sheraton Music City Hotel (777 McGavock Pike, Nashville)
Tickets: Weekend tickets in advance: reserve passes are $85 ($40 children 6-12), general admission $65 ($30 children 6-12); weekend general admission tickets are $75 at the door ($35 children 6-12). Sunday-only tickets are $40 ($20 children 6-12). Visit www.spbgma.com to purchase online and for more information.
What: Grand Ole Opry with the Grascals and others
When: 7 p.m. Fri., Feb. 11
Where: Grand Ole Opry House (2802 Opryland Drive, 1–800-733-6779)
Tickets: $18.50 (for children ages 4–11) to $55, available at www.opry.com