Country Music Blog: Blue Highway

If Cathy Bentley was so strict, how did her son, Dierks, pull off a lemonade-and-vodka stand? Only his mom knows, and she shared her stories with People.
A Nashville middle school is rich with 75 new musical instruments, thanks to a little help from Kellie Pickler and the Country Music Association.

Blue Highway meets the virtual highway as the acclaimed bluegrass band revamps its Web site.

Where are all the grown-ups? The Hannah Montana movie needs you. So if you're free Saturday, come on down to the open auditions in Nashville.

And despite a closed set and tight security, when the filming starts at Franklin High School, fandemonium will no doubt set in.

When Taylor Swift met John Mayer, she started quoting things from his MySpace blog. She said she was freaking out. He might've been a little freaked out himself.

Merlefest is probably the world's largest Americana and roots music festival. I was at the very first Merle Watson Memorial Festival (as it was called in those days) 21 years ago. The first concert featured jams with Chet Atkins, Doc, Earl Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, Jim Shumate, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Grandpa Jones, Marty Stuart, Newgrass Revival, John Hartford, Mark O'Connor and others inside the Walker Center and outside on a flatbed truck stage. I remember sitting on hay bales outside watching the whole thing go down. A few years later, I was playing Merlefest as a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station. One particular year was memorable because the mainstage show consisted of us and Ronnie Milsap, who just murdered the crowd with a solo guitar version of "Knoxville Girl."

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In the spirit of the season, I have done some spring cleaning on my desk. But before I clear out some of these CDs, I wanted to offer my own spring mix. (And I don't mean the sack of salad at the grocery store, although I do love that stuff with balsamic vinaigrette.)

Most of these songs are new, but the Whiskeytown and Lynyrd Skynyrd selections are from the newly released Deluxe Editions. Folk and bluegrass fans will probably enjoy a lot of these songs, and I tell you, it sure is good to hear new music from Alan Jackson.

"Small Town Southern Man," Alan Jackson

"Buffalo," Kathleen Edwards

"Seven Dollars," Mando Saenz

"Hopes Too High," Tift Merritt

"Honeysuckle Honeypie," Jim Lauderdale

"Bring Love," Carlene Carter

"Country Boy/City Boy," Chatham County Line

"Leaves Don't Fall (They Just Let Go)," Carrie Newcomer

"Five Generations of Rock County Wilsons," Tim Hensley

"Climbing Mountains," Meg Hutchinson

"A Week From Today," Blue Highway

"Paper Gown," Caroline Herring

"Little White Lie," David Wilcox

"I'm Looking for Blue Eyes," Allison Moorer

"16 Days," Whiskeytown

"I Never Dreamed" (original version), Lynyrd Skynyrd

One of my all-time favorite bluegrass songs is "Still Climbing Mountains" by Blue Highway. There is just something about that Dobro intro, and I love how the melody climbs and crests. That's one of the reasons I'm such a fan of these guys. They have a knack for arranging the music to emphasize what's going on in the story. It's never blatant or cheesy, yet it does underscore the emotion in the lyrics.

They must get that comment a lot, because when I met them last month before a show in Nashville, they said a lot of people ask how they arrange their songs. Their secret? Well, they just play what feels right. And when they get the track down, they make sure not to overthink it, or over-fix it, to retain the natural sound. The same notion goes for their new album, Through the Window of a Train, which comes Tuesday (Feb. 12) on Rounder Records.

Four out of the five guys live near Big Stone Gap, Va., so this time they recorded close to home at Maggard Sound, rather than Nashville. Citing the funky living room environment in the studio, they all agreed that it was an easy record to make.

"In music, you can't replace where you're from. In bluegrass, you can't replace being from that area. There's like a vein of music through there," says Shawn Lane, who plays mandolin, guitar and fiddle. (He also wrote and sang one of my favorite Blue Highway songs, "Between the Rows," about growing up on a farm and not realizing how good you had it.)

Blue Highway tours a lot, so it isn't surprising that traveling is a common theme on the new album. In fact, all the songs on the new CD are written or co-written by members of the band. Hard to believe, but it's the same lineup now as when they won their first IBMA Awards in 1996 for best emerging artist and album of the year. Hopefully they'll be climbing mountains, crossing rivers and picking at festivals for years to come.