Chris Eldridge | |
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![]() Eldridge in 2008 | |
Background information | |
Born | June 27, 1982 |
Origin | Fredericksburg, Virginia, U.S. |
Genres | Progressive bluegrass Bluegrass |
Instrument(s) | Guitar |
Years active | 2000-present |
Labels | Nonesuch Records |
Website | http://www.chriseldridge.net/ |
Chris Eldridge (born June 27, 1982) is a Grammy Award winning American guitarist and singer. He is a member of Punch Brothers and frequently performs in a duo with fellow guitarist Julian Lage. He was the guitarist in the house band on Prairie Home Companion/Live From Here from 2016-2020. He was also a founding member of the bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters. His father is noted banjoist Ben Eldridge of the Seldom Scene.
Chris Eldridge was born on June 27, [1] 1982. [2] Although initially drawn to electric guitar, Eldridge began developing an acoustic career by his mid-teens, largely due to his father, a founding member of the seminal bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. Eldridge later studied at Oberlin Conservatory, where he studied with legendary guitarist Tony Rice. After graduating, he joined the Seldom Scene with whom he received a Grammy nomination in 2007. [3] In 2005 he founded a critically acclaimed bluegrass group, The Infamous Stringdusters. At the 2007 International Bluegrass Music Association awards Eldridge and his Stringdusters bandmates won Emerging artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year for their debut album, Fork in the Road. [4]
In 2005 mandolinist Chris Thile, recruited Eldridge, along with banjoist Noam Pikelny, violinist Gabe Witcher, and bassist Greg Garrison, to start working on an ambitious project fusing bluegrass instrumentation with the rigor of classical composition. Eventually the musicians decided to form a band, Punch Brothers. Their debut album in 2008, Punch, has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical" [5] as well as "American country-classical chamber music". [6] Punch Brothers has released 6 full length albums and 2 EPs.
Eldridge appeared in the 2013 Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis as Mike Timlin, the deceased duet partner of Llewyn Davis. Eldridge can be seen alongside Oscar Isaac several times throughout the movie on the front and back covers of Timlin and Davis' album, "If We Had Wings." Eldridge and Punch Brothers appeared throughout the movie's soundtrack. [7]
Eldridge was featured in the exhibit, "American Currents: The Music of 2018" at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN. [8]
In 2019 Eldridge won the Instrumentalist of the Year award at the Americana Music Honors & Awards. [9]
In 2020 he was named Visiting Associate Professor of Contemporary American Acoustic Music at Oberlin. [10]
In 2023 he released an eponymous album with a new bluegrass supergroup called Mighty Poplar. Other members of the band include Noam Pikelny, Andrew Marlin, Alex Hargreaves and Greg Garrison. [11]
Eldridge is a nine-time Grammy Award nominee, winning once in 2019 for Best Folk Album. [3]
Year | Title | Label |
---|---|---|
2008 | Punch | Nonesuch |
2010 | Antifogmatic | Nonesuch |
2012 | Who's Feeling Young Now? | Nonesuch |
2012 | Ahoy! (EP) | Nonesuch |
2015 | The Phosphorescent Blues | Nonesuch |
2015 | The Wireless (EP) | Nonesuch |
2018 | All Ashore | Nonesuch |
2022 | Hell on Church Street | Nonesuch |
Year | Title | Label |
---|---|---|
2023 | Mighty Poplar | Free Dirt Records |
Year | Title | Label |
---|---|---|
2013 | Close to Picture (EP) | Modern Lore |
2014 | Avalon | Modern Lore |
2017 | Mount Royal | Free Dirt Records |
Year | Title | Label |
---|---|---|
2006 | The Infamous Stringdusters (EP) | Sugar Hill |
2007 | Fork in the Road | Sugar Hill |
Year | Title | Label |
---|---|---|
2007 | Scenechronized | Sugar Hill |
2014 | Long Time... Seldom Scene | Smithsonian Folkways |
The Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality works in the bluegrass music genre. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
Edgar Meyer is an American bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. He has won seven Grammy Awards and been nominated ten times.
The Seldom Scene is an American bluegrass band that formed in 1971 in Bethesda, Maryland. The band's original line-up comprised John Starling on lead vocals and guitar, Mike Auldridge on Dobro and baritone vocals, Ben Eldridge on banjo, Tom Gray on double bass, and John Duffey on mandolin; the latter three also provided backing vocals. Together they released their debut studio album, Act I, in 1972, followed by both Act II and Act III in 1973.
Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. From 2016 to its cancellation in 2020, he hosted the radio variety show Live from Here.
How to Grow a Woman from the Ground is a 2006 album by Chris Thile and Punch Brothers. It was released on Sugar Hill on September 12, 2006. The album is named after a song on the album; a cover of the original by folk singer Tom Brosseau.
James Bryan Sutton is an American musician. Primarily known as a flatpicking acoustic guitar player, Sutton also plays mandolin, banjo, ukulele, and electric guitar. He also sings and writes songs.
Aoife O'Donovan is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released three critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), and Age of Apathy, as well as multiple noteworthy live recordings and EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), Man in a Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge (2016), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Punch Brothers is an American band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), Brittany Haas (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass). Their style has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical" as well as "American country-classical chamber music".
Noam David Pikelny is an American banjoist. He is a member of the groups Punch Brothers, Mighty Poplar and was previously in Leftover Salmon as well as the John Cowan Band. Pikelny is a nine-time Grammy Award nominee, winning once in 2019 for Best Folk Album.
Gabriel Witcher is a Grammy award-winning American multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and arranger, best known as a fiddle player and singer. He is a founding member of the string ensemble Punch Brothers. Witcher and his fellow Punch Brothers won the 2019 Grammy for Best Folk Album and were named Affiliate Scholars of Oberlin Conservatory in 2014.
The Infamous Stringdusters are a progressive acoustic/bluegrass band. The band first emerged in 2006 with the limited release of a five-song extended play CD The Infamous Stringdusters, followed in 2007 by their first album Fork in the Road. Both of these were on Sugar Hill Records. The band consists of Andy Hall (Dobro), Andy Falco (guitar), Chris Pandolfi (banjo), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), and Travis Book. The band has become known for a complex, distinctive, and groove-friendly sound along with a bluegrass theme.
Punch is the debut album by Punch Brothers. It was released by Nonesuch Records on February 26, 2008.
Antifogmatic is the second album by Punch Brothers. The album was released June 15, 2010.
Who's Feeling Young Now? is the third album by Punch Brothers, released February 14, 2012.
The Phosphorescent Blues is the fourth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on January 27, 2015. The band announced the release of the album's first single, "I Blew It Off", on November 17, 2014, On December 4, 2014, the group announced the album's name and release date, along with the second single, "Julep". Julep was nominated for Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards. The album's cover is from the René Magritte painting "The Lovers" (1928).
How To Grow A Band is a 2011 music documentary film about the early days of American progressive bluegrass band Punch Brothers. The film stars Chris Thile, Gabe Witcher, Noam Pikelny, Chris Eldridge, Paul Kowert and Greg Garrison and features interviews with a number of notable musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Jerry Douglas, bassist Edgar Meyer and Sara Watkins. The film's structure tracks mandolinist Chris Thile's ambitious four movement suite, "The Blind Leaving the Blind" as it follows the band on their first tour as Punch Brothers in the United Kingdom and United States in early 2008 leading up to a triumphant performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room in New York.
All Ashore is the fifth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on July 20, 2018. The band announced the release of the album's first singles "It's All Part of the Plan" and the instrumental "Three Dots and a Dash" on June 14, 2018. The album was self-produced by the band and was released on the Nonesuch Records label. The nine songs were written and recorded in the sequence of the tracklist at the United Sound studio in Los Angeles, California. The album received generally favorable reviews from critics.
My Bluegrass Heart is a studio album by American banjo player Béla Fleck, the third of a trilogy that includes the 1988 album Drive and the 1999 album The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 2. My Bluegrass Heart features guest appearances from Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, Bryan Sutton, Billy Strings, Chris Thile, Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, Tony Trischka, Michael Cleveland and David Grisman.
Hell on Church Street is the sixth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on January 14, 2022. The band announced the release of the album's first single "Church Street Blues" on September 28, 2021. The album was self-produced by the band and was released on the Nonesuch Records label.
Greg Garrison is an American bassist. He is best known for his work with Leftover Salmon and Mighty Poplar. He was also a founding member of the Punch Brothers.
I was born in 1982, so his Graceland album was kind of ubiquitous when I was a kid.