Bill & The Bells with special guests Shadowgrass at The Blue Ridge Music Center
Bill and the Belles 2021 release Happy Again isn’t exactly happy. But the delightfully deadpan album from these roots mainstays is full of life, humor, and tongue-in-cheek explorations of love and loss. Happy Again marks a new chapter for the group by featuring eleven all-original songs penned by founding member Kris Truelsen. There’s no dancing around it: this album is about his divorce. But the group has a knack for saying sad things with a bit of an ironic smirk, pairing painful topics with a sense of release and relief. Anyone who’s been to one of their shows can attest that you leave feeling lighter and refreshed. The band often jokes that their setlists appear mournful and angry, but if you don’t listen to the words, you wouldn’t know it. “One of the darkest times of my life turned out to be one of the most creative,” says Truelsen. “I realized, ‘My life is chaos. I need to write about this shit.’”
Early fans of the band were hooked by their singing, and Happy Again continues to deliver stellar vocal trio arrangements, honed by Yeagle, that nod toward groups like the Ronettes and The Shangri-Las. The band began as a project to explore the sounds between rural and urban music, between vaudeville and down home roots, but they’ve arrived somewhere wholly their own. They revel in the in-between: deeply engaged with the stringband tradition and eager to stretch those influences to contemporary settings. Happy Again is the latest chapter of that ongoing story: what happens when a stringband from East Tennessee lays down a session at Motown. It’s a welcome evolution that feels familiar and timeless.
Bill and the Belles is Truelsen on guitar, fiddler Kalia Yeagle, bassist Andrew Small, and banjo/banjo-uke player Aidan VanSuetendael.
https://billandthebelles.com/
In the summer of 2014, a group of young musicians joined together at local fiddler’s conventions in Southwestern Virginia and Western North Carolina and formed a group that has become one of the most exciting young bands in bluegrass today. Since that time, they have won awards and played all over the United States sharing their love of music. ShadowGrass can trace its roots to the forefathers of bluegrass. While fully embracing the traditions of the past, ShadowGrass is moving forward in the genre by incorporating each member’s varied influences. This is a band that is comfortable stepping outside the bounds of traditional music while maintaining traditional instrumentation. The band includes Kyser George, guitar; Luke Morris, mandolin; Clay Russell, banjo, David George, bass; and Madison Morris, fiddle.
https://shadowgrass.band/