Chris Thile

Mutual Admiration Society is a musical collaboration between singer/songwriter Glen Phillips and progressive bluegrass trio Nickel Creek. The members... of Nickel Creek were fans of Glen's band Toad the Wet Sprocket and a chance encounter with a friend of Glen's backstage at a festival led to Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins emailing Glen and Glen agreeing to sing the title song on Sean's debut solo album Let It Fall. Glen invited the band to perform with him at the Los Angeles nightclub Largo and they quickly became strong admirers of each other's music, leading to the name of the group. They got together in Glen's home studio in December 2000 and recorded the album in 3 days, though it took 3½ years before it was finally released. Glen and Nickel Creek participated in a joint "Mutual Admiration Tour" in the fall of 2001, when they had initially expected the album to be released. When the album was finally released in the summer of 2004, another tour ensued, which included the services of Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and drummer Pete Thomas from Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
more

Punch Brothers are a progressive bluegrass band. The band consists of Chris Thile , Gabe Witcher , Noam Pikelny , Chris Eldridge , and Paul Kowert .... Their style has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical." Thile formed the band in 2006 to record the album How to Grow a Woman from the Ground. In an interview with the Nashville City Paper, Thile described the formation of the band: Initially the band was known as "The How to Grow a Band." In 2007, the band officially changed its name first to "The Tensions Mountain Boys" and then settled on "Punch Brothers." The band names comes from the critical line of a virus-like jingle that is the centerpiece of Mark Twain's short story A Literary Nightmare . On March 17, 2007, this group debuted Chris Thile's most ambitious work to date at Carnegie Hall: "The Blind Leaving the Blind", a forty minute suite in four movements. Thile says the piece was written in part to deal with his divorce of 2003. On February 13, 2008, the band set off on their first countrywide tour as Punch Brothers.
more

Sugar Hill Records is an American bluegrass and Americana record label. It was founded in Durham, North Carolina in 1978 by Barry Poss with assistance from David Freeman, the owner of County Records and Rebel Records. Poss acquired full control of Sugar Hill in 1980 and owned the label until 1998,... when he sold it to the Welk Music Group, owner of Vanguard Records. Poss stayed on as president, and in 2002 was promoted to chairman. Sugar Hill remained in Durham until 2007, when Poss moved the label to Nashville, Tennessee. Among the many notable artists who have released albums on the label are Nickel Creek, Doc Watson, Townes Van Zandt, Ricky Skaggs, Guy Clark, Sam Bush and Dolly Parton. One of Parton's albums for Sugar Hill, Halos & Horns , included a song called "Sugar Hill", which she wrote as a tribute to the label. In 2008, Welk Music Group appointed EMI as distributor of its labels including Sugar Hill.
more

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy... and southeastern American folk music. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles such as violins, and harmonicas. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 Country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute. Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years.
more

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. Bluegrass was inspired by the music of Appalachia. It has mixed... roots in Scottish, Irish and English traditional music, and also it was influenced by the music of African-Americans through incorporation of jazz elements. Immigrants from England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland arrived in Appalachia in the 18th century, and brought with them the musical traditions of these countries. These traditions consisted primarily of English and Scottish ballads— which were essentially unaccompanied narratives— and dance music, such as Irish reels, which were accompanied by a fiddle. Many older Bluegrass songs come directly from the British Isles. Several Appalachian Bluegrass ballads, such as Pretty Saro, Barbara Allen, Cuckoo Bird and House Carpenter, come from England and preserve the English ballad tradition both melodically and lyrically. Others such as The Twa Sisters also come from England, however the lyrics are about Ireland. Some Bluegrass fiddle songs popular in Appalachia, such as "Leather Britches", and Pretty Polly, have Scottish roots.
more

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a... mix of African and European music traditions. Its black African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation and the swung note. From its early development until the present day jazz has also incorporated music from American popular music. As the music has developed and spread around the world it has drawn on many different national, regional and local musical cultures giving rise, since its early 20th century American beginnings, to many distinctive styles: New Orleans jazz dating from the early 1910s, big band swing, Kansas City jazz and Gypsy jazz from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s and on down through West Coast jazz, cool jazz, avant-garde jazz, Afro-Cuban jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, Latin jazz in various forms, soul jazz, jazz fusion and jazz rock, smooth jazz, jazz-funk, punk jazz, acid jazz, ethno jazz, jazz rap, cyber jazz, Indo jazz, M-Base, nu jazz, urban jazz and other ways of playing the music. In a 1988 interview, trombonist J.J. Johnson said, "Jazz is restless.
more