New Grass Revival
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New Grass Revival was a progressive bluegrass band from 1971 to 1989.
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[edit] Band members
The founding members were Sam Bush (mandolin, fiddle, guitar), Courtney Johnson (banjo, guitar), Ebo Walker (Harry L Shelor Jr) (b. 19 October 1941) (upright bass) and Curtis Burch (guitar, Dobro), all from Louisville and western Kentucky, except Burch was from Brunswick, Georgia. They met as members of the Bluegrass Alliance, and when Lonnie Peerce left the group with ownership of the name, they reformed as the New Grass Revival (Bush has credited Walker with coining the term, "new grass"). After the release of their first album, released untitled, and as "New Grass Revival", "The Arrival of the New Grass Revival", and "Today's Bluegrass", Walker left the band. Butch Robins briefly joined the band, but being a talented banjoist he balked at playing bass, and was replaced in 1974 by John Cowan, a bass player with a background in soul music, who also shared lead vocals with Bush.
In 1981, following a two-year tour with Leon Russell, the group disbanded, however Bush and Cowan decided to continue performing. New Yorker Béla Fleck, a Juilliard-educated banjo prodigy, and Californian Pat Flynn, a session guitarist, joined the group, and this lineup was stable for the remainder of the band's existence. Their last concert was December 31, 1989, opening for the Grateful Dead at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California. The breakup has been attributed to Fleck's desire for a solo jazz career. Bush, Fleck and Cowan have all had successful solo careers since that time.
After Courtney Johnson died of lung cancer, Bush, Fleck, Cowan, and Burch reunited for one concert (September 24, 1996) at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee to benefit his widow.
In 1997, when Garth Brooks was invited to perform on The Late Show with Conan O'Brien to perform "Do What You Gotta Do", a song written by Pat Flynn, he asked Flynn, Bush, Cowan, and Fleck to join him in performing it.
Since that performance, Flynn has worked with both Cowan and Fleck, but not Bush. Likewise, Bush has also worked with Cowan and Fleck on numerous occasions. It is unlikely that a reunion will take place. Bush and Cowan have also played with Burch.
In April of 2007, Bush, Fleck, Cowan, and Flynn stepped forward together into the spotlight during the Merlefest 20th Anniversary Jam and played the Townes Van Zandt song "White Freight Liner." The single song reunion was the first time the four of them had played together in a decade.
[edit] Significance
The band members were notable as multi-instrumentalists. The band featured several songs in which one or more members changed instruments while the others played (Lonesome Fiddle Blues, for example). They were also notable among bluegrass bands for their instrumentation, which included drums, piano, electric guitar, electric bass, electric mandolin, electric fiddle, slide mandolin, violectra, steel guitar, 10-string Dobro, 5-string Dobro, conga, and more.
The New Grass Revival was also one of the earliest "jam bands", possibly the first to adapt that sensibility to country music. Nearly every album contained a 7 to 20 minute instrumental, and the songs lasted even longer in their live performances.
They have been called "the most significant acoustic country band in the USA".[citation needed]
They performed in the Robert Altman television miniseries Tanner '88, which includes a side storyline of the lead singer sleeping with Tanner's campaign manager.
[edit] Separation from mainstream bluegrass
Other groups were also playing progressive bluegrass at the time, such as The Dillards, Eddie Adcock's II Generation, and the Country Gentlemen, but few did it with the flair of the New Grass Revival. At the time, bluegrass was a very tradition-bound music; bands were expected to have short hair and dress in matching outfits. Not the New Grass Revival. They all had long hair, wore whatever they wanted to wear, and played whatever they wanted to play, including music by Jerry Lee Lewis ("Great Balls of Fire"), the Beatles ("Get Back"; "I'm Down"), Bob Marley ("One Love"), and protest songs ("One Tin Soldier"). This caused problems. A lot of people didn't like it and thought it wasn't the way Bill Monroe meant for Bluegrass to be played. "Our reason for doing the newer-type music wasn't pretentious or irreverent or sarcastic or disrespectful," explained Curtis Burch. "We just felt like people were ready to see that you could really expand the sound, using those same instruments." In 1979, they became the backup group and opening act for Leon Russell and this further alienated them from the mainstream bluegrass community.
[edit] Discography
- New Grass Revival (Starday 1972)
- Fly Through the Country (Flying Fish 1975)
- When the Storm is Over (Flying Fish 1977)
- Too Late to Turn Back Now (Flying Fish 1977)
- The Festival Tapes: 1977 Telluride Bluegrass Festival (Rounder 1977, recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival)
- with Peter Rowan, Land of the Navajo (1977)
- Barren County (Flying Fish 1979)
- Tellulive: 1979 Telluride Bluegrass Festival (Rounder 1979)
- The Festival Tapes/Tellulive--Classic Recordings from the 1977 & 1979 Telluride Bluegrass Festivals (Flying Fish)
- Commonwealth (Flying Fish 1981)
- with Leon Russell, The Live Album (Paradise 1981)
- Bela Fleck with the New Grass Revival: Deviation (Rounder 1984)
- Sam Bush: Late as Usual (Rounder 1984)
- On the Boulevard (Sugar Hill 1984)
- New Grass Revival (EMI 1986)
- Hold to a Dream (Capitol 1987)
- Live, 1983 recording (Sugar Hill 1989)
- Friday Night in America (Capitol 1989)
- Anthology (Capitol 1989)
- Best of New Grass Revival (Liberty 1994)
- with Leon Russell, Rhythm & Bluegrass: Hank Wilson Vol. 4, 1979 recording (Leon Russell 2001)
- Grass Roots: The Best of the New Grass Revival (Capitol 2005)
[edit] Videography
- Leon Russell and New Grass Revival: The Live Video (Paradise 1981, Monarch 1994)
- Austin City Limits #905, recorded November 6, 1983 (PBS February 1984)
- Music Video: Can't Stop Now (1987)
- New Country at the Cannery (TNN 1986)
- New Country at the Cannery (TNN 1987)
- Lonesome Pine Special, New Grass Revival (Kentucky Educational Television 1987)
- Music Video: Callin' Baton Rouge (1989)
[edit] External links
- Courtney Johnson obituary
- Sam Bush official website
- Bela Fleck website
- John Cowan official website
- Pat Flynn official website
- Butch Robins official website
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