H e ’ d heard only a little bluegrass


before and halfway thought of it as “old folks’ music,” but that changed with a few quickened heartbeats. Tese players were his own age, and the music had both a heart and an edge. Perhaps most remarkably, it came with a big wide front door. When Dierks,


a complete newcomer “Tey invited me over to their houses to the scene, approached the musicians with questions and obvious fascination,


they were more than willing to share insight into their music. Dierks remembers the next few years as an inspiring and important time.


for moonshine


and picking parties and pot lucks,” he says. “And they knew more about country music and Nashville and acoustic music than anyone on Music Row. Without that whole bluegrass community taking me in and helping me find my foundation, I would have had no place to start from.” Bentley honed his own style playing all kinds of country music in the clubs and honky-tonks of Nashville’s Lower Broadway and Second Avenue, mixing bluegrass with classic standards, obscure covers he found digging through old albums and an increasing number of his own songs. And when he landed his record deal with Capitol, he was happily surprised to find support for keeping his ties to bluegrass. Not only did many of his singles and album tracks feature prominent acoustic instruments, especially dobro, each of his albums included a certified bluegrass song with the McCourys or Te Grascals, a band largely comprised of the guys Dierks had met in those early Sidemen shows. Troughout his career on Capitol, as Dierks built one of the most loyal, connected fan bases in modern day country music, the press recognized that he was pulling off something extraordinary. His music was grounded in tradition but with enough relatability to work on the radio. No Depression magazine, the bible of the Americana movement, praised him for being a bridge between the roots world and the commercial mainstream. His fans began asking with some regularity when he was going to make a bluegrass album. Ten last year, aſter a grueling tour,


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