ASHEVILLE, N.C. (August 12, 2009)--Acclaimed bluegrass quintet Steep Canyon Rangers will launch both a new tour and a new album this fall. In September they will embark on a 15-city tour with Grammy® and Emmy® winning actor, comedian and musician Steve Martin, who released The Crow: New Songs For the Five-String Banjo in May. The first date on the tour will be September 12, when Martin performs at the Rangers' own Mountain Song Festival in Brevard, North Carolina, which has expanded this year to two days (Sept. 11-12).
The Rangers will release their fourth studio album for Rebel Records, Deep in the Shade, on October 6. That day they will perform with Martin at world-renowned Carnegie Hall and on ABC's The View.
The October and November dates for the Steve Martin tour featuring the Steep Canyon Rangers are as follows:
October 3 San Francisco, CA Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
October 6 New York, NY Carnegie Hall
October 7 Boston, MA Wang Center
October 9 Atlanta, GA Chastain Park Amphitheater
October 10 Charlotte, NC Blumenthal Perf. Arts Ctr.
October 11 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
October 12 Washington, DC Kennedy Center
October 15 Toronto, ON Roy Thomson Hall
October 19 Philadelphia, PA Verizon Theater
October 22 Chicago, IL Cadillac Palace Theatre
October 24 Denver, CO Paramount Theatre
October 27 Dallas, TX Meyerson Symphony Center
November 2 Spokane, WA Martin Woldson Theater at the
Fox
November 3 Seattle, WA Benaroya Hall
For their fourth Rebel Records release, the Rangers--Woody Platt on guitar and lead vocals; Graham Sharp on banjo; Mike Guggino on mandolin; Charles R. Humphrey III on bass; and Nicky Sanders on fiddle--returned to the studio with star bluegrass singer, songwriter and producer Ronnie Bowman. Band members Sharp, Humphrey and Sanders contributed 10 of the 12 tracks on Deep in the Shade, with material that encompasses a wide range of styles and moods, while remaining firmly in the bluegrass tradition. While all of the Rangers discovered and developed their passion for bluegrass as adults, they are all steeped in the genre's original sounds. In Martin's liner notes for the album, he aptly states, "The Rangers' original music is firmly rooted in tradition, and it makes you feel that even though you know you haven't heard this music before, it seems like you have, or at least should have."
The age-old theme of heartbreak has never sounded as upbeat as when accompanied by driving banjo, sawing fiddle and ringing mandolin on tracks like "Heartbreak is Real," "Have Mercy" and "I Thought That She Loved Me." "There Ain't No Easy Street" is a timely lament about the economy, set to an upbeat tune, while "Turn up the Bottle" and "Hollerin' House" address the means of drowning one's sorrow. "The Mountain's Gonna Sing" takes a metaphysical turn, while "Shades of Gray" is a philosophical look at relationships, and "Nowhere to Lay Low" tells a dark tale. Covers on the album include Merle Haggard's "I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known" and Lead Belly's folk standard "Sylvie," which beautifully showcases the band's vocal harmonies. The instrumental "Mourning Dove" lets the band's picking shine.
The Steep Canyon Rangers were named Emerging Artist of the Year at the 2006 International Bluegrass Music Awards. Their 2007 release, Lovin' Pretty Women, was nominated in 2008 for IBMA's Album of the Year. In the ten years since the group formed while they were students at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill they have earned a reputation for their consistently thrilling and artfully executed live shows, performing at venues that run the gamut from bluegrass and Americana festivals like MerleFest, Telluride and RockyGrass; to the Grand Ole Opry; to major music events in Sweden, Ireland, Germany, and Canada; and rock venues on the jam band circuit.
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For additional information, and more tour dates, please visit http://www.steepcanyon.com/.
To hear clips of four tracks from the album, please follow this link:
http://e2ma.net/go/2294105170/2084507/77786782/5785/goto:http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.popupplayer&sindex=-1.0&shuffle=false&amix=false&pmix=false&plid=25782&artid=4910901&profid=163340191&friendid=163340191&sseed=0&ptype=3&stime=0&ap=1&rpeat=false
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