Railroad Earth & Yonder Mountain String Band

For over two decades, Railroad Earth has captivated audiences with gleefully unpredictable live shows and eloquent and elevated studio output. The group introduced its signature sound on 2001’s The Black Bear Sessions. Between selling out hallowed venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO, they’ve launched the longstanding annual Hangtown Music Festival in Placerville, CA and Hillberry: The Harvest Moon Festival in Ozark, AR—both running for a decade-plus. Sought after by legends, the John Denver Estate tapped them to put lyrics penned by the late John Denver to music on the 2019 vinyl EP, Railroad Earth: The John Denver Letters. Beyond tallying tens of millions of streams, the collective have earned widespread critical acclaim from David Fricke of Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Glide Magazine, and NPR who assured, “Well-versed in rambling around, as you might expect from a band named after a Jack Kerouac poem, the New Jersey-built jam-grass engine Railroad Earth has let no moss grow under its rustic wheels.”

—

Bluegrass music is currently experiencing widespread popularity among mainstream audiences but transforming the vintage sound into music that could gain popular appeal didn’t happen overnight. At 25 years old, Yonder Mountain String Band continues to exist at the forefront of the progressive bluegrass scene as undeniable innovators and pioneers of the modern jamgrass movement. Blending bluegrass with elements of rock, alternative, psychedelic and improvisational music, Yonder Mountain String Band brought their high-energy acoustic sound and light show into rock n’ roll settings with tremendous success, proving it was possible for a bluegrass band to not only exist but excel in a rock world, without drums. The inroads they made created opportunities for like-minded acoustic bands to perform at festivals, rock clubs, theaters and stadiums previously considered off-limits for string bands. Yonder Mountain’s high-energy sound, compelling original music and anything goes attitude cultivated a spirit of collaborative improvisation that continues to fuel today’s progressive bluegrass and jamgrass scenes.

It is a testament to the legacy of Yonder Mountain String Band that their original songs and unique interpretations of covers are regularly performed by next generation bands in the scene.

Yonder Mountain String Band celebrates their quarter century mark with a Grammy Nomination for their 2022 release Get Yourself Outside. Band members Adam Aijala (guitar, vocals), Ben Kaufmann (bass, vocals), Dave Johnston (banjo, vocals) and Nick Piccininni (mandolin, banjo, fiddle, vocals) co-wrote all tracks on the album over zoom sessions when Covid shut down the music touring industry. Yonder Mountain was recently honored with an induction into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame alongside friends and legends Leftover Salmon, Hot Rize, The String Cheese Incident and The Fox Theater (where they played their very first show as a band in 1998).