Bluegrass Generals
The Bluegrass Generals are back, featuring another stellar lineup of musicians for our 10th annual run of Denver shows, March 28 - 29 at Cervantes! This year we have guitar hero Daniel Donato, mando/fiddle ripper Nick Piccininni from Yonder Mountain String Band, bass badass Geoff Saunders from Sierra Ferrell’s amazing band, and of course my fellow general Andy Hall. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years. It all started not long after I moved out here to Denver, with a super jam of sorts at the One Up on Colfax, featuring Sam Bush, Sam Grisman and Larry Keel. Now 10 years later, we have teamed up with so many amazing players, and there have been so many memorable shows along the way. I get a lot of questions about how these gigs come together so I thought I’d break it down for you.
Andy and I start to get lineup ideas together about 10 months in advance. That’s about when touring musicians start to know what their schedule will look like the following year. Then we start making calls. It’s rare to nail it on the first try in terms of availability, but thankfully we have a million talented friends. Eventually, we get someone to commit and we fill it in from there. It’s almost always mando, bass and guitar that we are after. A big part of the reason why we don’t have fiddle very often is because we don’t get to play with a mandolin player in The Stringdusters!
Once we have our lineup together, we start looking forward to the actual gig, and roughly 2 months before the shows, the band starts sharing a playlist of songs we want to do. We play 4 sets over 2 nights with no repeats, so this list gets long , somewhere in the 40-50 songs range. It’s always fun to see what people bring to the table - covers, originals, old, new, bluegrass, not bluegrass and more. A big part of the concept behind the Generals is to learn and play as much original music written by the bands members and their respective bands. I love this part of it because learning music that other people have written is a really deep experience, building connections that extend far beyond the gig. It’s a meaningful thing to take that time and get a deeper look into the songs and the writers. It’s a lot of learning/practicing, but that is one of the most rewarding parts of the whole thing.
As the weekend approaches, the band text thread heats up and lots of ideas start flying, about the music, the outfits and more. We get together on Thursday evening, the day before the first show, and run through as many songs as we can. On Friday we show up to Cervantes around 2 PM for rehearsal > soundcheck > more rehearsal. It’s so much music that you know not every little arrangement thing is going to go according to plan, so part of the rehearsal process is learning how to communicate on the fly with cues and how to interact as a unit. We build up a master list of stuff we’ve done, edit it a bit as we make final set lists, put on some camo, grab a quick dinner and before you know it’s almost showtime. There’s usually one last crash course look at that night’s sets and a quick review of the hardest songs, endings, etc. This part is really key to pulling the whole thing off! Then it’s time for liftoff - the payoff, the fun part.
On Saturday we meet back at the venue mid afternoon for another marathon rehearsal leading into that night’s show. I remember the year we had Mimi from Fruition, Billy Strings and Mike Devol from Greensky (a killer installment!), we were so wiped out by late afternoon Sat that we were just rehearsing the music by talking trough it, most of us laying down with eyes at half mast in the green room, conserving energy for the show. But when we walk on stage, it always pops off, thanks to years of experience, lots of preparation, and the exciting energy of a new ensemble and a full room of the best music fans anywhere. The best part is, the camaraderie lasts long after the gig is done. A few short months pass, and we start gearing up to do it all again. Come join us at Cervantes on 3/28-29 for the next installment!