Bowery Ballroom

showview

Crooked Still / The Infamous Stringdusters / Chatham County Line

Wed 7/16

Tickets

21+

Doors 7pm

$18 adv / $20 day of

Crooked Still

http://www.myspace.com/crookedstill
http://www.crookedstill.com
Neo-bluegrass group Crooked Still combines four musicians with distinguished backgrounds and connections. Singer Aoife O'Donovan, a graduate of the New England Conservatory, is also a member of the Wayfaring Strangers. Cellist Rushad Eggleston, the first string student admitted to the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship, also performs with Fiddlers 4 and Darol Anger's American Fiddle Ensemble while also leading his own Wild Band of Snee. Banjo player Greg Liszt, a Ph.D. candidate in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also plays with the Wayfaring Strangers and the Jake Armerding Band. And double bassist Corey DiMario, also a member of the Lissa Schneckenburger Band, has played in prestigious venues around the U.S. with such notable performers as Liz Carroll and McCoy Tyner. The four came together as Crooked Still in September 2001 when O'Donovan was asked to assemble a group for an informal concert at the New England Conservatory. Over the next few years, they developed a following in New England before releasing their debut album, Hop High, in February 2005. Their second release, Shaken by a Low Sound, followed a year later.
--by William Ruhlmann

The Infamous Stringdusters

http://www.myspace.com/stringdusters
http://www.infamousstringdusters.com
The Infamous Stringdusters are the new vanguard of acoustic music. Well crafted songs, vivid arrangements, instrumental virtuosity, stunning improvisation, unique individuality and complete harmony... Bluegrass, Jazz, Folk, Rock, Blues and Country, the "IS" is American Acoustic Music. When The Infamous Stringdusters comes out June 10 on Sugar Hill Records, some may assume from the title that it’s a debut recording. Those already aware of the Stringdusters phenomenon will know differently: that 2007’s Fork in the Road was the album that boldly introduced this daring, disciplined band to the world of bluegrass and a wider world of music enthusiasts who heard it and decided: ‘if that’s bluegrass, then I love bluegrass.’ Fork in the Road was named Album of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. Its title track was named Song of the Year, and the band itself earned the honor of best emerging artist in a competitive field. It was a stunning cap to an amazing 2007. Yet The Infamous Stringdusters feels like an introduction of a sort. Whereas Fork in the Road was made during their first potent months together, the new CD represents all the band has become during two years of intense touring, meticulous woodshedding and brotherly jamming. Nine band originals supplemented by a few carefully chosen tunes from colleagues in the acoustic music community, The Infamous Stringdusters is a cross-section of a band finding it’s common ground and it’s legs, staying near it’s roots but continually exploring new territory. In their breakout year of 2007, the Infamous Stringdusters played over 150 dates, including the biggest festivals in acoustic music, jammed on major stages with their heroes, and landed a development deal for motion picture music with Lions Gate Entertainment. With the release of The Infamous Stringdusters, 2008 promises more roads and more new fans in bluegrass and beyond.

Chatham County Line

http://www.myspace.com/chathamcountyline
http://www.chathamcountyline.com
Merging a traditional bluegrass sound and first-class picking with pithy songwriting that often confronts personal issues and political matters head on, Chatham County Line are a North Carolina foursome who first came together in 1999. In the mid-'90s, guitarist Dave Wilson was a member of a country-rock band called Stillhouse, whose sound merged Gram Parsons and Neil Young, when he met Greg Readling, a pedal steel player who could also handle upright bass. Both were interested in the possibility of forming an acoustic country band, and fiddle and mandolin master John Teer and banjo player Chandler Holt were Stillhouse fans interested in making music with a purer sound. The four friends began jamming together in 1999, and within a year they were playing out occasionally as Chatham County Line.

By this time, Stillhouse had broken up and Wilson and Readling were doing double duty with Tift Merritt's backing band, the Carbines. Chatham County Line were occasionally opening shows for Merritt, and at one such gig in 2003 they were seen by producer and Southern pop icon Chris Stamey, who liked their sound and offered to produce their first album; he also helped the band score a deal with the influential North Carolina-based indie label Yep Roc Records. Stamey also produced Chatham County Line's second album, 2005's Route 23, while Brian Paulson stepped in behind the board for 2006's Speed of the Whippoorwill. Since taking their act on the road, Chatham County Line have been named Best New Bluegrass Band at the 2004 RockyGrass Competition in Lyons, CO, while receiving similar honors at the 2006 Indie Music Awards. IV appeared from Yep Roc in 2008.
--by Mark Deming