Biography
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Years Active
1984 – present (40 years)
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Members
- Alan O'Bryant
- Blaine Sprouse
- Dennis Crouch
- Gene Libbea
- Mark Hembree
The Nashville Bluegrass Band is an American bluegrass music ensemble founded in 1984.
With each of the members being established musicians from the Nashville bluegrass community, the group's members first played together in 1984 as a backing band for Vernon Oxford and Minnie Pear. They signed to Rounder Records and recorded their debut (produced Béla Fleck), My Native Home, in 1985. Incorporating elements of black gospel and spirituals, then a rarity in bluegrass, they became critical and popular successes both in America and abroad. The group toured in some 20 countries and were the first bluegrass band to ever play in China.
The group continued to record for Rounder and Sugar Hill into the 1990s; two of the albums, 1993's Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go and 1995's Unleashed, won Grammy Awards for Best Bluegrass Album. Other albums were nominated for Grammys in the same category in 1988, 1990, 1991, 1998 and 2004. After the departure of bassist Gene Libbea and mandolinist Roland White in 1998, the group went on a brief hiatus, but after vocalist Pat Enright sang as one of the Soggy Bottom Boys from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the group's career saw a revival. They played as the backing group for many performers on the Down from the Mountain tour and album, and toured again on their own in the 2000s.
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