Consisting of Blake Williams on banjo and vocals; Wayne Southards on guitar and vocals; Kimberly Williams on bass and vocals; and Alex Hibbitts on mandolin and vocals, The Expedition Show signed with Mountain Fever Records in late 2010. The new project contains 12 tracks of some of the best in traditional, contemporary, original, and gospel music and also includes a bonus comedy track featuring the country wit and humor of Blake Williams. As with their previous recordings, The Expedition Show invited their dear friend and “honorary fifth member” Tim Crouch to play fiddle on the project. Although The Expedition Show is best known for their three-part harmony, the diversity of material this project offers allowed the band to try new vocal arrangements and includes two duets; a grassy version of a Louvin Brothers song, "I Can't Keep You In Love With Me" sung by Kimberly Williams and Wayne Southards and a Southards-penned original duet sung by Southards and Alex Hibbitts titled "My Love For You Is True". In addition, the band revived a familiar church hymn, "When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder", featuring Hibbitts on bass vocals and allowing Blake Williams to reprise his role as baritone singer, something he has not done since the 1980’s. All in all, Southards and Kimberly Williams evenly split the lead vocal duties, offering five songs each including Southards on an old Stephen Foster tune, “When The Springtime Comes Again (Little Annie)” and another original written by Blake Williams, “True Blue Never Ending Heartache”. Kimberly Williams reached back to 1977 for a beautiful country ballad titled “It Started All Over Again”, originally recorded by Vern Gosdin and Janie Fricke, and she also sings two more originals penned by her husband; “Storms of Life” and “Smoke And Mirrors”. Also included are two newly-composed instrumentals, "Showdown" and "Sparta Flash", the latter inspired by WSM DJ and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs who encouraged Blake Williams to write the tune and title it for the name given to Williams by Bill Monroe years ago. The first single from the project, "Backroads And Little Towns", penned by Wayne Southards and Blake Williams has already been receiving strong airplay since its release earlier this month.
The Expedition Show has been a fan and festival favorite since their beginning in early 2002 as Williams & Clark Expedition. In the fall of 2009, the band underwent a personnel change, added Hibbitts, and changed their name to The Expedition Show. During the band's 9 year tenure, the entertaining group has been nominated twice by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) for Emerging Artist of the Year (2005 and 2007), Wayne Southards has won the International Acoustic Music Association's Male Vocalist of the Year award (2009) and Blake Williams has been nominated three times for Entertainer of the Year by the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America (2007-2009). The band has performed all over the world including a tour with country music artist Darryl Worley to Japan as well as an extensive headlining tour in Canada. In addition, the band was invited to perform for the historic Ryman Auditorium's "Bluegrass Nights at The Ryman" concert series in 2007 where they played to a nearly sold out crowd.
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