The Grascals

After two songs that spotlight his emotive vocals and original songwriting, mandolin master and Grascals founder Danny Roberts returns with “My Brown Eyed Darling,” a new single that not only features a guest singer in wife and bassist Andrea Roberts — that’s a 1994 photo of her on the cover — but offers an organic example of the way songs from the bluegrass canon resonate across the decades.  

On the heels of 2022’s hit single, “Small Town America,” Danny Roberts — best known as a founder of and mandolinist for bluegrass powerhouse, The Grascals — returns with a somber meditation that takes its place in a long line of powerful country and bluegrass songs reflecting the hard, dangerous working life of underground coal miners.  

It’s been almost twenty years since Terry Eldredge, Jamie Johnson, Jimmy Mattingly, Dave Talbot, Terry Smith, and Danny Roberts played a fateful run of shows at the Station Inn (with Bobby Osborne as the special guest) as an unnamed band in February of 2004—the earliest iteration of what would become bluegrass supergroup, The Grascals. The band quickly rose from the hallowed and popcorn-scented Station Inn, and their signature sound of cutting edge bluegrass mixed with Nashville songwriting sensibilities made legions of fast fans.

Since the music’s earliest days, regret for leaving the childhood home and a longing to return have been among the most durable themes in bluegrass. From “The Fields Have Turned Brown” to “Old Home Place” and beyond, generations of songwriters and musicians have contrasted cold, uncaring city life to rural family traditions, sometimes in mournful laments and sometimes through deceptively up-tempo sounds.

The Grascals' newest album, BEFORE BREAKFAST, offers fans a hot shot of diversity with a freshly brewed mix of Bluegrass perfection.  The 12-song collection will be available September 1.  Fans who pre-order HERE now will receive "Sleepin' With The Reaper" as a "grat track."
 

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