Tomorrow Night on the Strip in Knoxville (or … The Mountain Soul Manifesto)
April 18th, 2007Mountain Soul will be performing live at the Mellow Mushroom on Cumberland Avenue in downtown Knoxville! Friends Daniel and Cary Kimbro, Jonathan Maness and Keith Anselmo will be whipping up a batch of eclectic, homegrown, bluegrass based fury for you. Don’t forget the $.75 PBR’s and $1 High Lifes!!
Now I’m sure many of you Knox-villains are wondering what Thursday nights at the ‘Shroom are all about. Allow me to spin you a narrative of epic proportions. In the musical world of 1930’s and ’40’s rural south, the socio-economic climate created a void for a unified creative voice of southern Appalachian culture. Technology, in the form of transportation, recording, and agricultural developments, brought together musical traditions on a level that had never been seen in those respective idioms. Black blues musicians busking on street corners were mixing with white farm boys, learning each others songs on their respective instruments. The old Scotch Irish traditional songs were to be forever changed in the form of one man, Bill Monroe. He combined his musical exposures into what the world came to call “bluegrass”. His influence has shaped a successful musical formula that continues in his direct musical descendants, Ricky Skaggs, Blue Highway, the Lonesome River Band, and many other fine musical groups shaped in his mold.
These days, technology has again brought us into a musical void. Mass media and the power those people seek to further line their pockets with limit your choices and therefore your freedoms. But the same technology that created a “monopoly on musical tastes”, also brings together new unexpected combinations of instrumentation, playing styles and idiomatic influences. We are in an age where musicians like Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile have broadened the collective mindset for the term “bluegrass” and are paving the way for the next generation of innovators in their never ending search for personal growth. Which brings our story back to Mountain Soul.
We are on a quest. We are actively searching for the new recipe for a unified creative voice, not just for the south, but for anyone who wants a positive force in their musical alternatives. We are a band of friends, collectively seeking the beauty that exists in homegrown music, created by the inexorable pull to express oneself by actively engaging the aural senses for the simple love of doing so. We are the musical progeny of Bill Monroe’s extended musical family, the children that exist as a result of the musical polygamy of Mr. Monroe, the Carters, Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, Dennis McGee, Doc Watson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many, many other of our heroes. We are taking steps into what feels like an incredible journey of innovation and creativity.
So, friends, when you drive down Cumberland Ave. and you see that sign “Bluegrass with Mountain Soul”, don’t drive off. First, remember this tale. Second, please stop in and see what we’re conjuring up for you every Thursday night at the Mellow Mushroom on Cumberland Avenue in downtown Knoxville at 9 p.m.

































