Newgrass musician Sam Bush is a perpetual journeyman.
After his initial exposure to his father’s country and bluegrass record collection, he was inspired to pick up a mandolin at age 11 and subsequently traveled with his father to the inaugural Roanoke, Virginia Bluegrass Festival. As a teen, Bush took first place three times in the junior division of the National Oldtime Fiddler’s Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Soon after, he began his professional career, joining guitarist and vocalist Wayne Stewart, his mentor and music teacher, and banjo player Alan Munde to record an instrumental album, “Poor Richard’s Almanac.”
His interest in making music was further piqued in the spring of 1970 when he attended the Fiddlers Convention and found inspiration in the sounds shared by a rock-flavored progressive bluegrass band known as the New Deal String Band. Later that year, he moved to Louisville and joined a group that called themselves the Bluegrass Alliance. In the fall of 1971, the band morphed into the New Grass Revival, one of the earliest examples of the sound that came to be known as “Newgrass.”
New Grass Revival was a true supergroup, one that also included, at various times, bassist/vocalist John Cowan, banjo master Bela Fleck and guitarist Pat Flynn. From 1979 through 1981, the group backed and opened for Leon Russell on tour.
Other associations were to follow, including the all-star ensemble Strength In Numbers, which consisted of Bush, Cowan, bassist Edgar Meyer, Multi-instrumentalist Mark O’Connor, and dobro and lap steel player Jerry Douglas. It eventually became the house band at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival where Bush, popularly known as “The King of Telluride,” performs every year. After the demise of New Grass Revival, Bush joined Emmylou Harris’ Nash Ramblers and played a continuing role in her band for the next five years.
In the years since, Bush has worked with any number of like-minded colleagues, including Fleck, Lyle Lovett, Garth Brooks, and eventually began touring and recording under his own aegis and with his Sam Bush Band.
His current outfit will return for an encore appearance at the Dancing Bear Lodge & Appalachian Bistro’s spacious natural amphitheater on Thursday, April 23. The concert is one of many performances by the band over the course of a busy festival season, one that includes Telluride, Merlefest, and a first-time visit to Kauai, the latter of which takes his claim to have performed in all 50 states in the U.S.
It’s little wonder Bush has been so well recognized. The recipient of three Grammy Awards and 11 Grammy nominations, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of New Grass Revival and then again in 2023 as a solo artist, making him only the sixth performer to have been inducted twice. He was also inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in 2006, given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Americana Music Association, and the following year, a Lifetime Achievement for Instrumentalist award. In addition, the International Bluegrass Music Association has named him its Mandolin Player of the Year four times.
In March 2010, the state of Kentucky officially named Bowling Green the “Birthplace of Newgrass” and Sam Bush the “Father of Newgrass.” The Resolution received unanimous approval in both state legislatures.
Despite his storied 50-year career and the abundance of accolades, Bush remains an amiable, down-to-earth individual whose constant smile in performance reflects his enduring enthusiasm for performing. And while he’s been influential in passing the Newgrass sound forward to bands like the Punch Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers and Town Mountain, he never hesitates to name those artists that had an effect on him — among them, The Dillards, Jim and Jesse, the Osborne Brothers and, of course, Bill Monroe.
“They were the people that we were influenced by, people that already had departed from tradition, the traditions of bluegrass,” Bush said. “I remember hearing a band from the Northeast called the Charles River Valley boys, and they put out an album in ’65 or ’66 called Beatle Country. I was a kid and just coming into high school when that record came out, and it just totally blew my mind that you could do Beatles songs on bluegrass instruments. You would think those songs were written for bluegrass the way they did them. Nobody was doing anything like it, so I thought they were like a progressive kind of bluegrass band. And then I come to find out, no, they were actually pretty much an old time kind of bluegrass band.”
It’s that feeling of connecting with an audience that Bush says he continues to cherish, and one which translates to the audience.
“It’s just great at this age to get to see new things,” Bush said. “I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to make a living doing what I love since I got out of high school, and I still love it. I’ve never enjoyed playing more than I do now. I am fortunate, and I’m especially fortunate that when the music starts, it’s a feeling that overtakes me, and I’m able to channel it so I’m not thinking about anything else. It can physically take away the woes or troubles of the day, and hopefully that can translate to the listener as well.”
Even so, he admits that when he turned 70 — he celebrated his 74th birthday on the day of our interview — he thought that maybe it was time to give up on touring and perhaps opt to stay home.
“It was probably around 2019, and I remember one time we were going down the road, and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we were just normal people, and we didn’t go out and do this, so we could be home every weekend. And we all kind of looked at each other, and went ‘nahhh.’ I was getting to a point where having done that ever since I got out of high school, I was wondering, how long do I want to keep doing this. Maybe I don’t want to travel anymore.”
Nevertheless, circumstances affected a change of attitude shortly thereafter.
“In 2020, lo and behold, there was Covid, and we couldn’t travel for a year,” he said. “There was no travel. There was no music to be played, and I found out that, boy, I’d taken it for granted, even though I had tired of the traveling. That was the only summer of my life where I spent it in one place and never traveled since I got out of high school. So that changed my perspective and my appreciation of getting to do this, and the fact that it’s wonderful. I missed going around and seeing the people I knew. We’re fortunate that not only do we get to play music, but there’s all the friends I’ve made in the last 50 years or so. I always look forward to seeing our friends and sharing a story and seeing whose kids are taller and what all everybody’s up to now. And so it was like a renewal of energy all of a sudden that made me realize I still love doing this.”
In that regard, Bush says he’s especially looking forward to the show at Dancing Bear.
“That whole experience of staying there, where you’re in the woods, it just gets people away from their daily grind,” Bush said. “I love that feeling. John Hartford said something to me once that I think about often and almost before every show. It was back when John and I were pals, and I had cancer. He was kind of a coach for me through all of it. He was one of the coaches I had, he and Steve Goodman and others, but especially John, because he had the personal experience with it, and he said it just helped him to know that if you could just take a moment for yourself and and tell yourself, ‘I know I can’t always play as good as I want to, but I love to do this, and I’m gonna go out and enjoy this moment. I know I can’t always play as good as I want to, but I sure am going to enjoy trying.’”
The Sam Bush Band performs live on the lawn at Dancing Bear Lodge & Appalachian Bistro, 7140 E. Lamar Alexander Pkwy, Townsend, Thursday, April 23 at 6 p.m.
General Admission (Concert only): $65
The Sam Bush Dual Experience (Concert + Dinner): $136
Purchase tickets here.
