Nickel Creek

Three Southern California children who met over bluegrass in a Carlsbad pizza parlour and grew into a platinum-selling, Grammy-winning trio, launched by Alison Krauss.

Origin
Carlsbad, California, United States
Years active
1989-2007, 2014-present
Genres
progressive bluegrass, acoustic pop, country, folk rock
Labels
Choo Choo Records, Sugar Hill, Nonesuch, Thirty Tigers

Carlsbad

The three met at That Pizza Place in Carlsbad, California, where their parents spent Saturday nights listening to John Moore's band Bluegrass Etc. Chris Thile, who took occasional mandolin lessons from Moore, and Sean Watkins had started mandolin with the same teacher in 1986. Sean, the oldest, later moved to guitar. His sister Sara had first played in public in 1985, and when the band formed in 1989, with Thile aged about eight and his father Scott on bass, she was its fiddler. Their first shows were at the pizza place.

A first album, Little Cowpoke, came out on Choo Choo Records, followed by a self-released cassette EP in 1996 and Here to There, also self-released, in May 1997. That year they made the cover of Intune: Southern California Blue Grass News. Meanwhile Thile's solo albums Leading Off and Stealing Second, both on Sugar Hill, tied the family to that label.

Sugar Hill

Alison Krauss, already a multiple Grammy winner, signed the trio to Sugar Hill and produced Nickel Creek, released on 21 March 2000, which the band counts as its real debut. Sara Watkins later said it was their first time in a proper studio, and gave Krauss credit for most of their success. Its singles When You Come Back Down and The Lighthouse's Tale had videos on CMT, and the record went platinum. It arrived months before the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack set off a wider roots revival. The IBMA named them Emerging Artist of the Year in 2000, and the next year Instrumental Group of the Year, with two Grammy nominations besides.

This Side (2002), again produced by Krauss, reached 18 on the Billboard 200, went gold and won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, with a Stephen Malkmus cover beside the originals. Why Should the Fire Die? (2005) was made in Los Angeles with Eric Valentine and Tony Berg, included Bob Dylan's Tomorrow Is a Long Time, and climbed to 17. The Village Voice judged it sleeker and more carefully built than anything by their rivals.

Farewell, for now

In late summer 2006 the band said it would stop recording and that its 2007 tour would be its last for an indefinite time. Reasons Why: The Very Best followed in November. The Farewell (For Now) Tour ran from April to November 2007, some dates with Fiona Apple, and ended at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on 29 November. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Tim O'Brien and Bela Fleck sat in, Scott Thile said goodbye from the stage, and the night closed with an unamplified Why Should the Fire Die.

Apart, Thile formed Punch Brothers, made The Goat Rodeo Sessions, received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012 and from 2016 to 2020 hosted A Prairie Home Companion, renamed Live from Here. The Watkins siblings led the Watkins Family Hour at Largo in Los Angeles. Sara made solo albums, the first produced by John Paul Jones, and formed I'm With Her with Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O'Donovan. Sean made solo records too, and played in Fiction Family with Jon Foreman and in Works Progress Administration.

Return

The reunion was announced in February 2014, and A Dotted Line, made with Valentine for Nonesuch to mark 25 years, came out on 1 April and reached seven on the Billboard 200. The tour that followed, with Mark Schatz on bass, took in an NPR Tiny Desk concert and Newport Folk, and a show at the Fox Theater in Oakland became the album Live from the Fox Theater. They reunited on Live from Here in 2017 and 2019, and in February 2021 played two livestreams from Santa Barbara, Nickel Stream: A Livecreek Experience.

Gathering in Santa Barbara that year, they wrote the 18 songs of Celebrants, recorded over four weeks with Valentine at RCA Studio A in Nashville and released by Thirty Tigers on 24 March 2023. The band called it a record about the friction that comes with real human connection. It drew a Grammy nomination, the band received the Americana Trailblazer Award, and tours followed in 2023 and 2024. Looking back in 2020, NPR argued that the 2000 album had foreshadowed the roots revival and helped make Americana the new indie rock.

Members

Records

Songs

Alison Krauss, Punch Brothers, Sara Watkins, Tim O'Brien

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

  • Nickel Creek discography Every album, single and chart peak in one table.
  • Discogs Promo singles, the 1996 cassette EP and the European CD singles.
  • MusicBrainz Releases and recordings, including dated live recordings.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Nickel Creek, Wikipedia
  2. Nickel Creek discography, Wikipedia
  3. Chris Thile, Wikipedia
  4. Nickel Creek, Contemporary Musicians
  5. The Year Folk Broke: How Nickel Creek Made Americana The New Indie Rock, NPR (2020-03-13)
  6. Nickel Creek's farewell concert, Ryman Auditorium, David Royko (2007-11-29)
  7. Celebrants (album), Wikipedia