Tennessee’s East Nash Grass presents people all from totally different bluegrass backgrounds, coming collectively for the second album of their very own, ‘Final Probability to Win.’

Stream: ‘Final Probability to Win’ – East Nash Grass

It’s our second album ever and it’s already our final likelihood to win. There’s some earnestness about it, and I feel that’s the theme all through the album.

It’s a Monday evening at Dee’s Nation Cocktail Lounge, and individuals are bustling across the bar – speaking and laughing. The lights are dim as six people take the stage – all bringing one thing totally different to the desk, all performing for the historical past and continuation of bluegrass music.

James Kee stands together with his guitar and Gaven Largent mirrors him on the dobro. Harry Clark holds his mandolin subsequent to banjo participant Cory Walker. The final two band members are a collective eight strings of bassist Jeff Picker and fiddler Maddie Denton.

The 2016 Grand Grasp Fiddle Champion and 14-time State Champion, Denton has a legendary historical past of fiddling in her household. She is a third-generation fiddle participant, her mother being the 2019 runner-up for the Nationwide Senior Fiddle Championship and her dad taking part in fiddle in rural DeKalb County, Tennessee.

“I’m from Center Tennessee, born and raised,” she explains. “It’s cool to assert that as a result of not many musicians in Nashville are born right here.” Her household historical past is essential to her. “Bluegrass and fiddle music run deep in my household, and the older I get, the extra which means to me.” This familial assist and inspiration has gotten her many locations – nonetheless, in contrast to her bandmates, she didn’t all the time have a music profession.

“I used to be a highschool biology trainer… I did that for 5 years earlier than I retired to pursue music final 12 months. This has been my first full 12 months of being an expert musician, so I’m 100% giving it my all.”

Dan Eubanks, a fill-in bassist for Dee’s Lounge invited her to play a pair tunes with him and Harry Clark. She didn’t assume a lot of it, however the Monday evening exhibits started constructing the band whether or not they knew it or not. She describes how Clark and Walker had collaborated initially – Walker being the one who got here up with the title “East Nash Grass.” She frolicked as a fill-in till vocalist James Kee requested her to formally be part of the band.

“Everybody on this band has performed with everybody. Some went in several instructions, then ended up coming again later. In 2020, all of us acquired collectively throughout the pandemic and we’re like ‘Let’s make a report’. So we did.”

That was the beginning of East Nash Grass, and now nearly three years later, the anticipation for his or her second album is nice.

“It’s shifting form of sluggish as this stuff do however now, we’re getting momentum. I’m actually excited, about this subsequent album as a result of it’s so good and I’m so proud to only play a small half in it.”

All people come from proficient backgrounds between huge phases and names. With a band resume that includes a number of awards and collaborations – East Nash Grass was a possibility for a bunch of younger facet gamers to carve a reputation of their very own.

There was deep gratitude for turning into a band. Together with this, there may be the conclusion that essentially the most worthwhile life property aren’t all the time what’s on paper. They’re the intangible and summary moments the place time appears to decelerate. Many people have final possibilities with our family members, alternatives, and even success. Time appears to be the one saving grace.

In Final Probability to Win, East Nash Grass’ second album launch with Mountain Fever Data (launched August 18, 2023), these themes are explored. It’s a dancing album, a sound that will get you in your toes and shifting. It’s stressed and rambling – a rhetorical query of what success actually means. The album balances out with timelessness too – a welcoming familiarity that claims, “Come on in, accept some time.” Maddie Denton breaks down the album with humility and appreciation.

“We had drawn from an old-time background and that’s not one thing that we mentioned. It simply got here collectively actually superbly with out even speaking about it.”

There’s a sense of success and group via the album. The lyrics present a way of misplaced time but hope that there’s extra of it left. In a dialogue with Atwood Journal, Maddie Denton provides her tackle the album and its creation.

Final Probability to Win options eleven songs: “Final Probability to Win,” “I Virtually Instructed Her,” “East Due West Blue,” a canopy of Papa’s “On the Housetop,” “Jenna McGaugh,” “How May I Love Her So A lot,” “When You Come Dwelling,” “Starlet Iris,” “Magic Metropolis Gray,” “Slippin’ Away,” and “Railroadin’ & Gamblin.”

“Jenna McGaugh” has Denton’s affect written throughout it. The pure instrumental monitor included a whole lot of fiddle and showcased a cool mixture of the band’s skillsets. She relays a narrative of how they have been on the street again from a music pageant and deciding on an instrumental monitor. Denton “got here up with a melody and that evening acquired her fiddle and performed it.” Largent got here up with the concept to re-harmonize the music and the band got here up with the chords collectively. “It’s the identical melody over totally different chords and I might by no means have thought of that.”

The music title “Jenny McGaugh” is a reminiscence token – Denton tells me that “Dee’s is nestled behind a couple of retailers and shops. It’s within the yard of Jenny’s Toybox…then there’s McGaugh’s which is a donut place.” It was a bit imprecise, but additionally capable of be pieced collectively for listeners. She wished to call it one thing Madison-themed, being a suburb proper exterior of Nashville, it was a house for the band.

This isn’t the one music that credit Madison. “Magic Metropolis Gray” paints an image of what the town means to the band: “I’m just like the rain, she’s like a cloud; I solely fall when she places me down,” and “Magic Metropolis gray within the windy haze of evening nonetheless shines.”

The town has given East Nash Grass many possibilities, however there’s the danger that comes with taking them.

“Oh, there may be magic. It’s like two issues that go collectively – there’s a lot alternative and it’s an exquisite factor – however with that comes some unhappiness and there’s all the time going to be some underlying angst. That’s the theme of the album.”

Madison has offered the band with the privilege of taking part in music collectively, however that doesn’t imply dwelling isn’t missed generally. There’s hope in new locations, however there may be additionally that want to return to the place it began. The album additionally has songs that contact on that concept of coming dwelling. I requested Denton what it meant for her as an instrumentalist to painting these emotions.

“The fiddle, for my part, is the closest factor to the human voice. There aren’t any frets, and it’s taken me a very long time to determine that it’s not a rhythm part instrument however it’s a color-adding one.”

The younger artist exhibits nice perspective on understanding her position and the way it has helped her musical maturity. “I do have a task that’s much like the human voice, I generally is a storyteller with this wood instrument. It’s an honor to play fiddle, particularly with the heritage in my household.”

Nonetheless, Denton doesn’t solely carry out with the fiddle on the album. In actual fact, she sings on the monitor “When You Come Dwelling” which is a little bit of an outlier as a result of it’s not determined however extra old-timey. The music was written by her good good friend Theo Macmillan. The piece has nice concord stacks with the blokes singing beneath Denton’s voice: “My door is all the time open if love is what you’re in search of.”

Denton’s take is a testomony to bluegrass. The style itself could be very all-or-nothing – it’s fast-paced but considerate. Every band member will get to paint the album with their musicality and instrumental intention.

“It was a lovely course of to place this album collectively. It’s a venture that represents all six of us and the place we’ve all been.”

Every member contributed to the album and made it theirs. Final Probability to Win is the inventive imaginative and prescient of all band members – a mixture of totally different backgrounds that characterize a collective feeling. The album is self-produced, and contains many inventive collaborations – from songwriting with Hugh Moffatt on “How May I Love Her So A lot” to Invoice Anderson on “Slippin’ Away.” The album artwork can be a novel characteristic of the band. One in all Clark’s childhood associates, Ellis Gildner is a photographer for the band and his sister Catharine Gildner listened to a few songs from the album and created artwork primarily based on it.

“She drew us three sketches and certainly one of them was a tousled, working cat. We cherished it as a result of we felt just like the cat was determined and grungy…had a tough life, a final likelihood to win too.”

Denton picks out one line, “Taking part in tunes to empty rooms” from the opening music “Final Probability to Win,” which she believes represents the album and everybody who contributed to it.

“I feel that resonated with a whole lot of us and everybody within the music group. All of us get our share of taking part in tunes to empty rooms.”

Final Probability to Win is the form of album that can fill rooms. The band intends to do some dwell exhibits all through the autumn and can be capable of department out to a bigger viewers.

“The truth that nobody is aware of who we’re collectively as a unit…individuals might have heard of us as people with these different bands we’ve performed in however the six of us constructed this from scratch. It does take a whole lot of laborious work and making an attempt to get your title on the market for individuals to know who we’re as East Nash Grass.”

For every member – Harry Clark, Jeff Picker, Cory Walker, James Kee, Gaven Largent, and Maddie Denton – this album is one other likelihood to get their names on the market. A kind of intangible moments that give life worth is the query of “will there be one other likelihood” blended with the hope that there can be.

Denton closes the interview with a contented coronary heart, stating, “All these guys, I simply love them as people, and I like attending to play with them. I hope that comes via the album as effectively and I’m simply actually pleased with it. Hopefully, it’ll make its strategy to the world and do issues. Even when it doesn’t, I can be simply as proud to have been part of it and it’s a bit piece of my life that I’ll all the time be pleased about, it doesn’t matter what occurs.”

Final Probability to Win is a beautiful portrayal of the band’s connection, struggles, and supreme pleasure in creating and sharing music.

With songs which are stuffed with each candy magic and harsh actuality, East Nash Grass permit listeners to take a step into their world.

Launched on August 18th, Final Probability to Win is now accessible to stream throughout all platforms. Help East Nash Grass: Take heed to their music, take pleasure in it with others, and rise up and dance!

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 © Kaitlyn Raitz

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