By Gwen Johnson Staff writer
From the January 28, 2004 edition of The New Castle Record
Blue highway, one of the country’s top five bluegrass groups, will appear in concert March 20 at 7 p.m. in the Craig County High School Auditorium. Proceeds will benefit the school baseball team.
It’s been said by those in the know that Blue Highway is indeed synonymous with the bluegrass genre. Since their debut in 1995 with “It’s a Long, Long Road,” the Kingsport band has had many claims to fame both individually and as a group.
Able and willing to meet the challenges set by the masters that came before them, the Blue Highway has been unafraid to take bluegrass where it has never been before in terms of new audiences, new regions and new heights of instrumental, vocal and lyrical excellence.
The groups’ instrumental superiority has not only been acknowledged with industry awards, but with the ultimate compliment of being invited to record and perform with some of bluegrass music’s biggest stars such as Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs, Doyle Lawson, Patty Loveless and more; and the list is still growing.
Guitarist/vocalist and co-founder of the group, Tim Stafford, won a Grammy for his work with Alison Krauss and Union Station on the album” Every time You Say Goodbye” and Rob Ickes, one of the hottest dobro players in the country has won Grammys for his contributions to Krauss and the Cox Family’s “I know Who Holds Tomorrow” as well as for the collaborative album, “The Great Dobro Sessions.”
The band’s last album released in September 2001, “Still Climbing Mountains,” caps their seven-year rise to one of the industry’s top bands in the country. The album is a focused collection that points the way for bluegrass in the new millennium. It mixes both old and new ideas in both solo and collaborative musicianship.
t is an album the group has been working toward since they started playing together in 1994. In putting together this album they pooled their efforts and sacrificed individual glory to become the sum of their collective efforts. The entire album was written by the band which is sort of rare in bluegrass, according to Ickes.
Each member also contributes vocals for a combined bluegrass-gospel harmony sound that is consistently bringing in new fans for the band as well as the genre. “People are searching for a little more soul other than Top 40 Country,” said Ickes.
Other albums by Blue Highway include “It’s a Long, Long Road,” released in 1995, “Wind to the West,” 1996, “Midnight Storm,” 1998, Blue Highway,” 1999.
The concert will be opened by the Craig County Boys.
Tickets cost $15 and may be purchased from Eddie Helems at 864-5485, Dallas Fisher, 864-6255 or Carrie Crawford, 864-5516.
– Prepared By Shelly Koon