I have just discovered The Boxcars – a great Bluegrass band with Adam Steffey on mandolin. Adam Steffey is one of the great bluegrass mandolin players of today. He has played in many bands, during the 90s he was the mandolin player with Alison Krauss and Union Station. The Boxcars was founded in 2009 and has released their first CD in October 2010.
This is the information about Adam Steffey on the Boxcars homepage:
An East Tennessee native, he found a place in the Tennessee-Virginia border area’s thriving bluegrass scene in short order, serving early stints with the Lonesome River Band (Tyminski was his replacement there) and then helping to found the near legendary group, Dusty Miller, along with Bales and guitarist Tim Stafford. The three jumped to the big time together when Alison Krauss recruited them into Union Station, and for nearly seven years, Steffey lived the life of a high profile musician, as the band earned Grammy awards and IBMA trophies, toured extensively, made national TV appearances and recorded albums that reached far beyond the core bluegrass audience. Yet by 1998, the restless side of Steffey’s spirit made itself felt when he left the group and, after helping to lay plans for what would become Mountain Heart, joined bluegrass gospel favorites The Isaacs—a setting in which he played a different, though no less important role.
I have found that Adam Steffey plays Daley mandolins, and so I have also visited the Daley Mandolin homepage which shows some great mandolins and players.
The following song – December 13th – impressed me immediately when I heard it. You can find some information about December 13th in a post of the Bluegrass Blog (see below)
The Boxcars – December 13th
Adam Steffeys mandolin solos in Let Me Fall is incredibly fast and fascinating. I have put this video clip to the beginning of my playlist of The Boxcars.
Playlist The Boxcars
I have compiled another playlist with videos with Adam Steffey.
Playlist Adam Steffey
Additional Information
Homepage The Boxcars: http://www.theboxcars.com/
Daley Mandolins Homepage: http://www.simdaley.com/
Bluegrass Blog about the song December 13th: http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/the-boxcars-december-13th/
Wikipedia about Mountain Heart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Heart
50 free transcriptions of Adam Steffey solos can be found on the Mandozine website: http://www.mandozine.com/music/search_results.php?row=0&searchfor=&tuneselectby=C&mandolevel=&category=&songkey=&artist=steffey&transcriber=&sortby=T&sortorder=A&submit=