Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band

Washington, DC. (December 27) - Calv'ry Booking and Management is pleased to announce the new single release "Going To Georgia" by Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band. This track is an extremely energetic update of the traditional tune made famous by the Stanley Brothers. Stoney Creek's version is found on their latest project, "Hot Off the Press".

"Going To Georgia" begins with blazing mandolin kick off by Brett Smeltzer. Darrell Sanders' banjo break tips the hat to Ralph Stanley's clawhammer style and the song's pre-bluegrass roots. Ed Barney turns in a fluid break that proves why he is one of the unsung heroes of contemporary bluegrass guitar.

Berryville Bluegrass Series promoter Frank Jurney writes: "I expected it to be very strong instrumentally. I've been familiar with super banjo player Darrell Sanders since his days with the excellent band Bill Harrell and the Virginians. After listening, I was equally impressed with the group's vocals. Libby (Files) is among the rising number of female vocalists who are making a big impact on bluegrass music. She's very easy to listen to and the group's harmony is top notch."

Stoney Creek provides a sound that hits harder than most - high energy, hard driving versions of traditional songs and obscure deep cuts that capture the live energy often polished out by other artists on studio projects. Stoney Creek not only captures the drive, but also turns up the heat with tight harmonies and stunning instrumental skill. The next Stoney Creek project will extend these qualities to several original tracks that have been winning over fans on the road.

Stoney Creek features several bluegrass veterans who are no strangers to the road. Ed Barney has toured internationally as lead guitarist for Up With People. Brett Smeltzer spent several years touring and recording with one of Maryland's premiere bluegrass acts, Jack Sanbower and the No Leeway Band. Darrell Sanders spent ten years with the Virginians, as well as a stint with Charlie Moore and the Dixie Partners. Stoney Creek was founded by bassist Libby Files, whose lead vocals are featured on "Going To Georgia".

Among others, Stoney Creek has shared the stage with Loretta Lynn, Ronnie Reno, and IBMA favorites Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper. In May 2010, Stoney Creek was named "Artist of the Week" by Bluegrass Music Profiles magazine. In August 2010, Stoney Creek did an hour long in-studio performance on WAMU's Bluegrass Country in Washington, DC. Stoney Creek was also featured at the renowned Lucketts Fair in Lucketts, Virginia.

Stoney Creek will be staying busy in the winter months, beginning their 2011 season with show dates in January. Check out www.StoneyCreekBluegrass.net for details.

I’m very proud to be affiliated with this band and will work to book them to a local venue/festival in the Knoxville or surrounding area. I see a big future with this group and certainly am impressed with the drive they posess.

Danny Hensley/Southern Branch Bluegrass Radio

This Article taken from “Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band” web-page.

Dale Ann Bradley

It's 9 a.m. on a rainy January day in Nashville, five days into 2009. Dale Ann Bradley is coming up the studio steps without a raincoat, carrying a guitar and a folder full of lyrics. She's been on the road for 14 straight days, it's 25 degrees and pouring, but never mind all that. She's been shaping the concept of her new project, the follow-up to her Compass Records debut Catch Tomorrow, for months, and she can't wait to kick off the first song. She's let her heart guide her way through stacks of songs, looking for those that capture something beyond great music, something that gives voice to what she's been living and breathing in her own life for the last year. So take a seat around the coffee table at the Compass Sound Studio – where Dale Ann Bradley sits with an old D-28 and producer and banjoist Alison Brown puts her gentle mark of genius on arrangements – and let Dale Ann tell you about Don't Turn Your Back in her own words: "It needs to be more than a record," she's says. "This is my dream album. I want it to inspire people to hang in with whatever they're facing – to find the hope and inspiration to keep going. I want to share the music that's touched me and I want to put everything into it that has been given to me over the past year."
This is Dale Ann Bradley. She's the 2007 & 2008 IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year and has been hailed by Alison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs as one of the greatest vocalists in country and bluegrass music. A former Coon Creek Girl and mainstay at Kentucky's Renfro Valley Barn Dance, Bradley commands a list of awards as long as Highway 40, yet a few minutes with her tells you she is something even more than extraordinarily gifted – she's extraordinarily human. A Primitive Baptist preacher's daughter out of the hills of Kentucky where no musical instruments were allowed, Bradley grew up in a self-described "backwoods holler" down a rural road where electricity and running water weren't available until she was in high school – something she has more in common with the first generation of bluegrass than her contemporaries in today's scene.
Dale Ann Bradley is nothing if not a great storyteller, but her ability to step into someone else's shoes and make their story her own for a few minutes, that is what allows every note sung and played on Don't Turn Your Back to be believable. In the company of some of best bluegrass pickers and singers including Stuart Duncan (fiddle/banjo), Deanie Richardson (fiddle), Alison Brown (banjo), Gena Britt (banjo), Steve Gulley (vocals), and Mike Bub (bass), Bradley explores Don't Turn Your Back's undeniable themes of bravery and hope through the eyes of mothers, lovers, trains, and one shiny, soon-to-be-lucky penny. Staying true to her daughter-of-a-preacher roots, Don't Turn Your Back includes three bluegrass gospel numbers: the humorous "Rusty Old Halo", The Carter Family's "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room", and the traditional "Heaven", which features reigning IBMA Entertainers of the Year Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent. Sharing her love of classic rock and its influence on her music and voice, Bradley includes bluegrass versions of Fleetwood Mac's "Over My Head"and Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", yet stays close to tradition with the Kentucky mountain ballad "Blue Eyed Boy". Courage is the silver thread running through all twelve tracks of Don't Turn Your Back, and it is in these songs that Bradley lays out all she's got: "Anybody Else's Heart But Mine" teaches us how to push through a broken heart, "Will I Be Good Enough" (Branscomb, Claire Lynch on guest vocals) whispers hope to uncertain parents, and "Music City Queen" (Bradley/Branscomb) documents the dauntlessness of those who come to Nashville seeking stardom. The title track calls for giving life's highway one more chance.
Dale Ann Bradley's mountain soprano has been called "shimmering" (The Washington Post), "angelic" (Billboard), and "exceptional" (Bluegrass Unlimited). An acclaimed musician and currently living in Nashville, TN, Bradley fills every stage and studio with humor, grace, and integrity.
Additional recordings in the station library include "East Kentucky Morning", "Catch Tomorrow" & "Southern Porches" and many wonderful tunes from her "Coon Creek Girls" projects.

Phil Leadbetter

Phil Leadbetter (born March 31, 1962) is one of the leading players of the resonator guitar.

In 1994, Phil received a Grammy Nomination for "Best Bluegrass Album" at the 37th Annual Grammy Awards for his work with J. D. Crowe and the New South on the album "Flashback". In 2005 he was voted International Bluegrass Music Association "Dobro Player Of The Year". That year he also won "Instrumental Album Of The Year" for his CD "Slide Effects". His song "California Cottonfields" held the #1 spot on the National Bluegrass Chart for two consecutive months in 2005.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Phil was a 1980 graduate of Gibbs High School in Corryton, Tennessee. Gibbs was also the high school attended by country artist Kenny Chesney. Phil currently plays with The Whites. They are Grand Ole Opry members and multiple Grammy Award winners.

Phil's previous professional work: 1988 : The Grandpa Jones Show 1989 : The Vern Gosdin Band 1990-2001 J.D. Crowe And The New South 2002-2006 Wildfire (Founding member) 2007-2010 Grasstowne (Founding member) 2010-Present The Whites

The Phil Leadbetter Signature Dobro, manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Corporation, is named after him. It features a square neck for steel guitar playing and a single inverted-cone resonator. The guitar also features solid wood construction. It is the only guitar being made today which bears the name "Dobro".

Wonder Radio & Radio Time Announcement

I'm so pleased to announce that "Wonder Radio" & "Radio Time" has picked up Southern Branch Bluegrass to allow listeners to receive broadcasts through their smart-phones and an online radio broadcast server/web-site to give a wide open number of listeners world wide. This will enable Southern Branch to increase the listener base and enhance the quality of sound being produced. Pure/crystal clear stereo is incredible now especially through http://www.radio.time.com/ and bookmarking the station is easier than ever. A HUGE "THANK YOU" goes out to my good friend and tech guy "Willie Ray" and his dog out in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND GOOD LISTENING!http://www.wunderradio.com/stations.php?query=southern+branch+bluegrass

Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen

Review: Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen
posted by Brance on 08.17.10 @ 12:22 pm Tags: Frank Solivan II
I’ve been a fan of Frank Solivan II since I first heard him perform with the United States Navy band, Country Current. Frank has since left the Navy and formed his own band bearing his name, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen. Today marks the release of the band’s self-titled debut album. Frank has previously released two solo CDs, but this is the first band recording to be released.
The CD contains 12 tracks, 5 written by Frank. From the first note it’s obvious this is a group of accomplished musicians playing music they love. Drifting Apart hits you full force with no warning. The music is driving and forceful and the vocals are anything but drifting, they are as tight as one could hope to hear. You can feel the energy and excitement. This is contemporary bluegrass with it’s roots firmly planted in tradition.
You’ll have to be on your toes and paying attention to grasp all the intricacies of what’s happening. For example, the second track is an innovative version of John Stewart’s folk tune, July You’re A Woman. The cut begins with a Backwaters feel, then turns into a strait up bluegrass tune, with Munford’s melodic banjo driving in a way you might not have expected. Solivan’s mandolin solo is clean, full of triplets, and leads smoothly into Meyers’s flawless guitar solo. The fiddle takes you back into the lyrics, leading to the closing banjo solo, where if you listen closely you’ll smile as you here strains of Blackberry Blossom incorporated seamlessly, and appropriately, into Munford’s melodic interpretation of this 60′s folk tune.
Tarred and Feathered is sure to be favorite. From special guest John Cowan’s tenor vocals, to Lincoln Meyer’s driving rhythm guitar, this song is one of those medium tempo tunes that just throbs with bluegrass attitude.
Left Out In The Cold, another Solivan original, offers a heartfelt insider’s view of the trials faced by those who live their lives on the street without a home.
I could go on, there’s even an a cappella gospel number to close the CD, but you get the idea. The press release described this as “an album that offers up a smorgasbord of musical sounds.” Judging by the breadth of styles represented on this CD I’d say that’s an accurate, but inadequate description. Inadequate, because it says nothing of the coherent relationship that exists between these 12 tunes. They differ stylistically enough to warrant such a description, but they all work together flawlessly to tell one metanarrative: Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen can’t be put in a box.
Make no mistake, these guys are a bluegrass band, but they teach us here that bluegrass is more of an attitude that it is a specific musical formula. They have material here that your average bluegrass band wouldn’t be able to make you believe. In the liner notes Frank makes the point more than once that with these disparate tunes they took each one and “spread it out on the floor and bluegrassed all over it.” That’s a line I plan to remember and quote in the future!
Solivan is a singer of power and passion and a writer whose articulate songs go straight to the heart. A multi-instrumentalist who combines the pure, hard drive of classic bluegrass with twenty-first century sophistication, Solivan and company are increasingly in demand at festivals and venues across the country.
He is joined by Baltimore/D.C. five string-banjo master Mike Munford, Stefan Custodi as the heartbeat of Dirty Kitchen on upright bass, and flatpick guitar wizard Lincoln Meyers. Solivan finds an outlet that suits his talents to a T, combining his unique and varied experience in the middle of three top-notch musicians who lift each other up and let each person’s talents shine through in the most impressive of ways.
If you get the chance, you’ll want to try to catch Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen at a House Concert. Not only are these intimate settings great for listening to music, but in addition to being a gifted musician, Frank is also a gourmet cook and treats the evening’s guests to a pre-show feast. This unique combination of great food and great music is called The Dirty Kitchen Experience: Dinner with the Band. How better to bring people together than music and food? And Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen is the group to do just that.

Redwing

"Redwing consists of vocalist/guitarist Kevin Williamson, his father Jerry on bass, mandolinist Rudy Rohr, banjo player Dale Vanderpool and fiddler Buddy Griffin. The bluegrass band released Do You Ever Think of Me in 1992."

This music is lined with velvet harmonies and some incredible string work. I feel very fortunate to have received a project from this group and have added them to the Southern Branch music library. Tune in for their special sound.

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