hypersongs

Blue Highway

A Kingsport, Tennessee bluegrass band led by Tim Stafford, Wayne Taylor and Shawn Lane, winner of the IBMA's album of the year for its 1995 debut and its song of the year for "Through the Window of a Train" (2008).

A weekend band

Blue Highway began in 1994 (MusicBrainz and some sources say 1995) when Tim Stafford of Kingsport, Tennessee started a weekend band with the bass player Wayne Taylor so that they could keep playing while spending time with their families. Shawn Lane on mandolin and fiddle and Rob Ickes on resonator guitar were in the early line-up, and Jason Burleson joined on banjo soon after. Their first show was at the First Night Celebration in Kingsport on December 31, 1994. Stafford had co-founded Dusty Miller and played with Alison Krauss and Union Station from 1990 to 1992; Lane had played with Ricky Skaggs; and Ickes, from Northern California, moved to Nashville in 1992. Decisions are made by a five-way vote, and Stafford, Taylor and Lane are the main songwriters.

Their debut, It's a Long, Long Road (Rebel, July 1995), spent six months at the top of the Bluegrass Unlimited chart and won the International Bluegrass Music Association's album of the year and emerging artist awards in 1996. Wind to the West (1996), Midnight Storm (1998) and Blue Highway (Skaggs Family, 1999) followed; Burleson left in July 1998 and Tom Adams played banjo until Burleson returned in September 2000. On Rounder from 2001 they made Still Climbing Mountains, Wondrous Love (2003, Dove Award and Grammy nomination), Marbletown (2005, Grammy nomination) and Through the Window of a Train (2008).

Later years

Some Day: The Fifteenth Anniversary Collection (2010), Sounds of Home (2011), The Game (2014, number one on the Bluegrass Unlimited album chart for seven consecutive months), Original Traditional (2016, a Grammy nomination) and Somewhere Far Away (2019) followed. Ickes left in November 2015 after 21 years and was replaced by Gaven Largent; the line-up now lists Gary Hultman on resonator guitar, though one source dates his departure to 2019. They moved to Down The Road for Lonesome State of Mind (2024), whose title song was the most played bluegrass song of 2023, and for their first live record, Live at ETSU! (April 17, 2026), recorded in Johnson City.

Their IBMA awards include gospel recording of the year (1997 and 2004), song of the year (2008) and vocal group of the year (2012), with Stafford songwriter of the year in 2014 and 2017, and Ickes named dobro player of the year many times; the band's site counts 32. Wayne Taylor entered the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016, and the Blue Highway Fest in Big Stone Gap, Virginia was named IBMA event of the year.

Albums

Songs

  • Through the Window of a Train Through the Window of a Train · 2008

    The title track of their 2008 album: a man remembering rides on the train with his father, named IBMA song of the year for 2008.

Sources

  1. Blue Highway, Wikipedia
  2. Blue Highway takes 15 years for Some Day, Country Standard Time
  3. Blue Highway, The Bluegrass Jamboree
  4. Blue Highway, bluehighwayband.com