Nashville, Tennesee

Bluegrass

            Mountain Heart was only formed in 1998 but it quickly gained acclaim and, in 1999, was voted International Bluegrass Music Association's Emerging Artists of the Year.    No surprise as its founding members were well experienced on the bluegrass scene.  In fact, half the members of the band are veterans of Doyle Lawson's highly disciplined Quicksilver band, and Mountain Heart offers up a virtuosic, distinctively up-to-date sound. Founding member and mandolinist Adam Steffey hailed from the fertile East Tennessee bluegrass territory and was a key part of Alison Krauss + Union Station. Fellow founding member Barry Abernathy, voted banjo player of the year in 1997 by the Preservation of Bluegrass Music, began his career performing bluegrass gospel with Silver Creek.    Steve Gulley hailed from a musical family; his father Don was program director of with The Pinnacle Boys, a group very popular in the Knoxville, Tennessee area in the 1970s. Guitarist Clay Jones, who's from Mocksville, N.C. and started playing bluegrass banjo at age seven, has toured with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder.   Fiddler Jim VanCleve, guitarist Steve Gulley, and Abernathy all performed with Doyle Lawson's Quicksilver band. Jason Moore (bass), who has also been featured on IBMA award-winning recordings, rounds out the group who will be at the 2005 Great Lakes Folk Festival.

              While the group loves performing straight-ahead traditional bluegrass classics also incorporate new tunes on contemporary topics.   As Gulley puts it, “You can only sing about cabins and plowing with mules so many times. We're all mountain boys, but you also have to write about something that you know. We never had to plow with mules, or live in a cabin-all the stuff our fathers did."   So, Mountain Heart balances playing tribute to bluegrass greats with contemporary songs about subjects such as war-born tragedy, domestic violence, aging, and women's life and career choices.

Adam Steffey (Mandolin)
Steffey is arguably the most influential mandolin player of the past decade, and was an original member of Mountain Heart. A veteran of Alison Krauss & Union Station, with whom he reached unparalleled heights of success, earning multiple Grammys, Country Music Association and IBMA awards and frequent appearances on national television, he helped to create Mountain Heart in 1999, and then went on to further acclaim as a member of the award-winning gospel group, The Isaacs. Known far beyond bluegrass, Steffey was drafted to appear with the Dixie Chicks on their performance at the 2001 CMA awards show and Grammy winning recording "Home". With his return, Steffey has brought a new measure of acclaim, consummate musicianship and fellowship to the band.

Links
http://music.yahoo.com/ar-299435-bio--Mountain-Heart
http://www.mountainheart.com/bio.cfm
http://www.bluegrassmusic.com/index.php
http://www.bluegrassworks.com/profile.php?profileID=28
 

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