New Grass Revival

New Grass Revival. Damn, what a group!!! Invented, obviously, "new grass" music, which is a offshoot of bluegrass. Less mountain, more pop and rock. Star studded group with Bela Fleck on banjo, Sam Bush on mandolin, John Cowan on bass and amazing mullet and Pat Flynn on guitar. Bela and Sam are GODS on their instruments, everyone knows that. Pat is under-rated on guitar and John's got amazing pipes. I saw them twice. The first time was at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. The last time I saw them, was their last show before going their seperate ways. It was opening for the Grateful Dead at new years, 1988 into 89 (or was it 89 into 90). These guys were great. Really good songs and killer instrumentals too. This video shows about everything they had, great vocals and wizard like instrumental passages.



Since then, I saw Bela Fleck and the Flecktones a bunch of times, several times had Sam as a member of the band. I met both backstage at the Westport Playhouse (as well as Victor and Roy Wooten) and spent a long time speaking with them. They remembered me the next time I saw them at a free concert in the parking lot at Union Station, where they talked to me several times from the stage (I was in the front row). They hadn't done a soundcheck and they were asking how they sounded and what needed to be changed. We had drinks afterwards. Cool guys.