New Grass Revival

Newgrass

New Grass Revival grew out of the Bluegrass Alliance, which Sam Bush and Courtney Johnson joined in 1970. Wikipedia says Lonnie Peerce left in 1972 and the rest kept the name; the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame says Peerce, the acknowledged leader, left and took the name with him, and the remaining members, including 19-year-old Bush, formed a new group under the same name. The name was meant to signal continuation of bluegrass innovations by the Country Gentlemen, the Osborne Brothers and the Dillards. The line-up in the 1970s was Bush, Curtis Burch on guitar and dobro and Johnson on banjo, with bassists Ebo Walker, Butch Robins and from 1974 John Cowan. A debut album on Starday came in 1972 (1973 per the Hall of Fame), and they played Bean Blossom despite Bill Monroe's objections to their style. Flying Fish albums followed through 1981, and from 1979 to 1981 they backed and opened for Leon Russell.

Burch and Johnson left in 1981 or 1982, and Bela Fleck and Pat Flynn joined. On the Boulevard (Sugar Hill, 1984) was the Frets readers' Acoustic Album of 1985, they played Austin City Limits in 1985, and signed to EMI and Capitol in 1986. Hold to a Dream (1987) came with a US Information Agency tour of Asia, Africa and Europe and a Wembley festival; Friday Night in America (1989), produced by Wendy Waldman, held "Callin' Baton Rouge", their highest-charting single at 37 on US country. The band disbanded on New Year's Eve 1989 at the Grateful Dead's Oakland show, per Toppermost and the Chicago Tribune; Courtney Johnson died on June 7, 1996, and a benefit at the Ryman followed on September 24. Garth Brooks took "Callin' Baton Rouge" into the country top 5 in 1993 with Bush, Cowan, Fleck and Flynn backing him, and his cover of "Do What You Gotta Do" reached 13 in 2000.

The Hall of Fame inducted the band in 2020 and Sam Bush individually in 2023. The Chicago Tribune's David Royko called them the standard by which anything called newgrass was and is judged, and Americana UK said they expanded more than anyone else the parameters of traditional bluegrass. Fleck went on to the Flecktones, and BMI credits members with 678 compositions and arrangements, including "Big Foot", "Indian Hills", "On the Boulevard" and "Sapporo". Setlist.fm lists 171 setlists from 1972 to 1989, and the Internet Archive holds recordings including Telluride on June 18, 1988.