The Bluegrass Alliance

Simply listing some of the players who have passed through the Bluegrass Alliance in its various incarnations provides ample evidence of how important this outfit was in the development of bluegrass. Top-flight pickers who have worked in the Bluegrass Alliance include multi-instrumentalist Chuck Nation, mandolinist Sam Bush, flatpicking whiz Dan Crary, rambunctious fiddler Hoot Hester, banjoistsBuddy Spurlock and Courtney Johnson, progressive bluegrass guitarist and bandleader Tony Rice, and even Vince Gill, a bluegrass flatpicker and frontman who eventually went on to carve out a career in country & western music. The band was originally formed by fiddler Lonnie Peerce in the late '60s and within a few years was already busy with gigs at fairs, clubs, festivals, and colleges. The group appeared on the Grand Ole Opry at least a dozen times over the next decade and cut three albums. One of the first groups to be stuck with the gimmicky label of "new grass," the band went on hiatus in the late '70s that, unfortunately for lovers of grass new or blue lasted much longer than anyone intended it to. Peerce had to retire from performing for health reasons and many of the band's former members had too many projects going on their own to worry about a re-formation. For example, four former members, including mandolinist Bush, formed the New Grass Revival, indicating their own fondness for this genre label. Instead, reviving the band became the goal of a young a banjoist named Barry Palmer. Palmer was a fanatic of the original version and had befriended Peerce and his wife when the band was riding high in popularity. He was born in early 1960 in Cleveland, GA, and from an early age had two sets of musical activities going in both bluegrass and a much different style of music,...