Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-06-23
Photo credit: Natia Cinco
Today, progressive bluegrass band AJ Lee & Blue Summit announce their forthcoming album, Cover To Cover, due September 11 and available for vinyl pre-order on Signature Sounds. Fans can stream/purchase the first single, “Fishin’ In The Dark,” here.
As the album opener, “Fishin’ In the Dark” sets the Cover To Cover stage, with Lee and her bandmates injecting a euphoric shot of adrenaline into the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band classic, which boasts an impressive half a billion Spotify streams. Like much of the album, the track remains true to the spirit of the original while filtering it through the unique lens of the band’s considerable strengths, layering airtight harmonies atop deep rhythmic grooves with plenty of space to solo and experiment.
A virtuosic four-piece that’s taken the progressive bluegrass world by storm, AJ Lee & Blue Summit live for the stage, spending well over a hundred nights a year on the road, putting on the kind of rapturous, ecstatic performances that have made them critical and festival favorites alike. For all the acclaim they’ve garnered over the course of their first three albums, though, there’s an element of the group’s captivating live show that’s rarely made it into the studio.
“Our records have pretty much all been original material up to this point,” says Lee (mandolin, vocals), “but our set lists have always had a lot of covers in them. Country, folk, bluegrass, swing, gypsy jazz, we love taking all sorts of songs and putting our stamp on them.”
Cover To Cover, the band’s intoxicating fourth album, collects eleven of their favorites into a dazzling showcase not only of the band’s superlative musicianship, but also their remarkable ambition and imagination as arrangers and interpreters. Recorded with longtime friend and engineer Jonathan Kirchner and featuring appearances from Jerry Douglas, Lindsay Lou, Trey Hensley, and more, the album reinvents tunes by the likes of Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Emmylou Harris, offering fresh perspective on tracks from across a broad range of genres and eras.
The songs are delivered with joy and reverence here, several of them drawn from the band’s earliest days playing bars and cafes around Santa Cruz, and the arrangements are dynamic and spacious, with plenty of room for dazzling solos and lush harmonies. Add it all up and you’ve got a love letter from AJ Lee & Blue Summit to the songs that shaped them, a whirlwind journey through the last century of American roots music delivered by some of the brightest young torchbearers of their generation.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit 2026 Tour Dates
June 27 - Ten Mile Creek Revival 2026 - Laytonville, CA
July 15 - Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival 2026 - Oak Hill, NY
July 21 - Chirp - Ridgefield, CT
July 22 - FloydFest - Check, VA
July 24 - Bijou Theatre - Knoxville, TN
August 2 - Salmonfest Alaska 2026 - Ninilchik, AK
August 8 - Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival 2026 - Alta, WY
September 23 - Falcon Bowl - Milwaukee, WI
September 24 - Lincoln Hall - Chicago, IL
October 9 - Lobero Theatre - Santa Barbara, CA
October 10 - Casbah - San Diego, CA
October 21 - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC
October 22 - The Ramkat & Gas Hill Drinking Room - Winston-Salem, NC
October 23 - The Grey Eagle - Asheville, NC
October 24 - Neighborhood Theatre - Charlotte, NC
November 12 - The Southern Cafe and Music Hall - Charlottesville, VA
November 13 - Pearl Street Warehouse - Washington, DC
November 14 - The Sultan Room - Brooklyn, NY
November 15 - 118 NORTH - Wayne, PA
November 17 - 3S Artspace - Portsmouth, NH
November 18 - One Longfellow Square - Portland, ME
November 19 - The Sinclair - Cambridge, MA
November 20 - The Iron Horse - Northampton, MA
November 21 - Levon Helm Studios - Woodstock, NY
November 22 - Infinity Music Hall - Norfolk - Norfolk, CT
More About AJ Lee & Blue Summit
A virtuosic four-piece that’s taken the progressive bluegrass world by storm, AJ Lee & Blue Summit came together as teenagers in the fertile California festival scene, cutting their teeth at campsite jams and parking lot picking sessions before landing their first gigs at bars and cafes around Santa Cruz. After a pair of widely lauded self-released LPs, the group landed a deal with Signature Sounds for their label debut, City Of Glass, which earned rave reviews and led to festival slots everywhere from Telluride and MerleFest to High Sierra and RockyGrass, where their standout set prompted Rolling Stone to declare that “the band can seamlessly weave from bluegrass to country to western swing to folk-rock, with the powerhouse vocals of Lee as the core.”
Last year, AJ Lee & Blue Summit were nominated for IBMA New Artist of the Year, and AJ Lee was nominated for IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year. The band also successfully launched and curated their inaugural Sierragrass Festival last May, bringing a world-class folk-centered lineup to a 1,300-acre former golf course and nature reserve in the Sierra foothills.
