Tuesday, 10 January 2012 10:09
Please note our show at the Station Inn in Nashville has changed to January 27th!

The Grascals head in to the holiday season full of good cheer and, well, pie. “We’re just full of it,” laughs the group co-founder Jamie Johnson. “El’s wife, Catherine Lundy-Eldredge, makes a mean Upside Down Apple Pie, and we’ve been doing some serious taste-testing!” The dish is so delightful that GACTV.com is including the recipe in their 12 Days of Country Cookies (& Treats) feature, and fans can grab the recipe for this down-home dessert here.

Grascalites who want to see more of their favorite band can catch The Grascals’ November 7 performance here on THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON. The audience loved the group’s version of “Louisiana Saturday Night,” and it’s the perfect Christmas Eve entertainment for Bluegrass lovers since December 24 falls on a Saturday this year.

Tickets available for purchase at all Middle Tennessee Daily’s Stores and Lipscomb University’s Box Office

On March 29th, Lipscomb University will welcome General Tommy Franks (Ret.), Charlie Daniels, Wynonna, Montgomery Gentry and The Grascals to Lipscomb University’s Allen Arena for ‘Operation Yellow Ribbon’, an annual event created to raise awareness and funds for Lipscomb University’s Yellow Ribbon Program. The event, “An Inspiring Evening of Stories and Songs,” will feature General Tommy Franks (Ret.) as the keynote speaker and hosting the evening will be popular television and radio personality, Storme Warren.

Tickets for the ‘Operation Yellow Ribbon’ Event are now on sale for $10 and are available for purchase at all Middle Tennessee Daily’s stores, and at the Lipscomb University box office(615.966.7075). Members of the military and their families will be invited as guests of the events’ corporate sponsors. All proceeds from the event benefit Lipscomb University’s Yellow Ribbon Program, which offers eligible Post 9/11 GI Bill veterans and their family members an undergraduate degree tuition-free or a graduate degree tuition-free or at a greatly reduced tuition rate.

The ‘Operation Yellow Ribbon’ Event is sponsored by Daily’s, iostudio, Military System Group, ADS, Spirit Broadband, Tennessee Commerce Bank, and Tennessee National Guard.

Event produced by David Corlew & Associates in conjunction with Lipscomb University.

The multiple award-winning, Grammy- nominated group The Grascals will bring their special blend of Bluegrass to The Raccoon Creek Music Park ( 332 Music Park Path, Dallas, GA 30132) on Saturday, July 9. Heralded as a group of genre-bending geniuses with a lightening-hot stage show and raise-the-rafters vocals, The Grascals perform two shows at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. For ticket information click on http://www.raccooncreekmusicpark.com or call 770-943-2721.

The Grascals are in demand: They joined Hank Williams, Jr. for numerous shows on his Rowdy Friends Tour throughout 2010, and headlined over 150 shows at State Fairs and on the Bluegrass festival circuit as well. The Grascals continue to enjoy extensive media exposure on a variety of outlets, including NPR’s Mountain Stage, RFD-TV, CMT, GAC, The Grand Ole Opry, Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, FOX & Friends, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Country Network (TCN) and both CBS’s Early Show and The Talk.

Already among the most beloved and acclaimed bands on today’s bluegrass scene, The Grascals continue to receive awards for their work. The group brought home three SPBGMA awards in 2011: Instrumental Group of the Year; Mandolin Performer of the Year (Danny Roberts) and Banjo Performer of the Year (Kristin Scott Benson). In 2010, they were named SPBGMA’s Bluegrass Band of the Year. The Grascals have also received the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year award (2005) and Entertainer of the Year award (2006, 2007). Kristin Scott Benson is the three-time winner of the IBMA’s Banjo Player of the Year Award (2008, 2009 & 2010).

The Grascals are currently touring in support of their #1 Billboard Bluegrass Album (holding position for seven weeks; CD also peaked at # 23 on the Billboard Top Country Album Chart), THE GRASCALS & FRIENDS, released January 10, 2011 on their newly-formed label, BluGrascal Records. The 13-track disc features The Grascals in true duet format with close friends, including: Brad Paisley, Dolly Parton, Dierks Bentley, Joe Nichols, Charlie Daniels, Tom T. Hall, The Oak Ridge Boys and Darryl Worley. THE GRASCALS & FRIENDS – Country Classics With A Bluegrass Spin is a special project produced in conjunction with (and sold exclusively in) Cracker Barrel Old Country Store® and online at www.crackerbarrel.com . The disc’s first single, “I Am Strong,” features the heavenly voice of country icon Dolly Parton; the video, filmed at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®, includes footage of actual cancer patients interacting with the group. “It was very moving,” says The Grascals’ Jamie Johnson of the video project. Cracker Barrel is donating a portion of the CD proceeds from to St. Jude.

The Grascals’ newest CD -DANCE TIL YOUR STOCKINGS ARE HOT AND RAVELIN (A Tribute To The Music Of The Andy Griffith Show) was released digitally on March 29 via BluGrascal /Saguaro Road Records in partnership with Time Life and in stores on June 7. The seven-song EP, which celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the iconic TV series. The CD debuted this week at # 5 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums Chart.

While salutes to the 50th anniversary of The Andy Griffith Show continue to roll out, the Grascals are paying tribute with a bluegrass spin on a new CD.

Released this month on Saguaro Road Records/Time Life, Dance ‘Til Your Stockings Are Hot and Ravelin’ revisits songs that were featured on the sitcom with down-home characters and values.

The endearing show, which aired from Oct. 3, 1960, through April 1, 1968, continues in syndication across the country.

“Our band feels there was no better sitcom ever,” said Terry Smith, vocalist and bass player for the Grammy-nominated group. “Any time we can be affiliated with The Andy Griffith Show, we’ll sure jump at the chance.”

All fans of the show, band members even quote dialogue back and forth on the tour bus.

One of the many pearls of wisdom comes from Andy Taylor (Griffith, who turned 85 on June 1): “When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s getting might really be fear. So I don’t carry a gun because I don’t want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I’d rather they respect me.”

The title of the seven-song EP comes from the line that Briscoe Darling (Denver Pyle), patriarch of a musically inclined hillbilly family, said before launching into a tune.

The Darlings played some of the album’s songs on the show, including the gospel classic Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, in the “Mountain Wedding” episode. That was when Barney Fife (Don Knotts) dresses up like Darling’s daughter Charlene to prevent her from getting married to neighbor Ernest T. Bass.

With tunes such as Dooley, Boil Them Cabbage Down and Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer), the album also includes a new song, Boy, Giraffes Are Selfish The title comes from one of Fife’s famous lines in one of the most popular episodes, “Dogs, Dogs, Dogs,” in which Opie (Ron Howard) almost persuades his father to let him keep a stray when a pack of dogs invades the courthouse.

Other tributes to the show’s 50th anniversary include a DVD boxed set, The Andy Griffith Show 50th Anniversary: Best of Mayberry, and assorted collectibles.

The Grascals formed in 2004 when its members, six bluegrass musicians who had been performing about two decades, all found themselves between gigs.

The other members of the band are Terry Eldredge, vocals and guitar; Jamie Johnson, vocals; Danny Roberts, vocals and mandolin; Jeremy Abshire, fiddle; and Kristin Scott Benson, banjo.

“The joke is we formed a band because we were all unemployed, and there is a little truth in that,” Smith said.

Dolly Parton learned they were recording an album and asked to hear what they had so far. About three weeks later, they were part of her band, and the Grascals were opening for her.

“That opened a lot of doors for us,” Smith said.

The Grascals went on to release five albums and win numerous accolades, including two awards as entertainer of the year from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America.

In January, they released The Grascals & Friends in conjunction with Cracker Barrel. A collection of 13 classic country songs with a bluegrass twist such as White Lightning and Folsom Prison Blues, it features guest artists such as Parton, Brad Paisley, Joe Nichols, the Oak Ridge Boys and Tom T. Hall.

“We didn’t over-produce it. We let it breathe its own life, and it has a heart and soul,” Smith said. “We wanted it to be a true duet album instead of being a backup band for these artists.

“I think we pulled it off. It really is like the Grascals and friends, and the friends did a wonderful job.

As for The Andy Griffith Show, Smith not only likes the music but also the meaning.

“The show always had a message. It usually taught a good lesson on top of being entertaining,” he said. “It’s still relevant today because it’s real, from real life. And Andy did not allow one-liners on the show. He wanted the characters to be funny as opposed to the other way around.

“Like bluegrass and country music, the show is right from the heart.”