North Carolina Bluegrass Veterans Hank Smith & Pattie Kinlaw Debut Modern Bluegrass Music During The International Bluegrass Music Association World of Bluegrass Conference and Festival in Raleigh, Touring the Northeast Again This August!
Raleigh, NC - Two of North Carolina’s veteran bluegrass musicians join forces to create unprecedented music featuring the full range of their talents as composers and arrangers. he duo is on tour August 19-23 playing on popular VA radio show, "The Drive Thru With Rog", a house concert in Ashland, VA, for Harmony Presents in Hawley PA, The Rockwood Music Hall in NYC, Club Passim in Boston, MA and at The Raleigh Times in Raleigh NC.
The duo makes use of traditional bluegrass instrumentation in a non-traditional way to present original music to the listener that goes beyond the limits of the idiom. The arrangements take on a new level of maturation that follows in the footsteps of Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer, and Tony Rice. Hank and Pattie want to pick up where seminal crossover groups like Strength In Numbers and the ever changing Bluegrass Allstars left off. The music is vocal and instrumental, allowing the duo to experiment with arrangements and tailor the compositions to become vehicles for exploration. While Hank and Pattie are the only two musicians on the tour, they also play with a full compliment of musicians to form The Current. Hank Smith plays banjo, Pattie Kinlaw plays fiddle and sings. The band is rounded out with Ben Parker on guitar on vocals, Robert Thornhill on mandolin and vocals and E. Scott Warren on bass. The group will tour extensively in 2016 including an appearance at the Rockygrass Festival in Lyons, CO this summer.
Hank and Pattie recorded a new, self-titled album with The Current of original material out now on Robust Records. Visit hankpattieandthecurrent.bandcamp.com for downloads and streaming.
About Hank Smith & Pattie Kinlaw:
Hank Smith and Pattie Kinlaw have been playing together in various capacities for the last eight years in various ensembles including The Kickin Grass Band and Morning After Music. This is the first time the two will tour as a duo without the assistance of a larger ensemble. The music they create on and off stage sounds as though it came from one mind. The duo approach improvisation with lightning fast thought and reaction and compose intricate, as well as dulcet melody, vocal harmony and lockstep rhythm. For them, music is an endless playground of texture, tone and space that allows for pure joy in playing and a straightforward maturity one would expect from musicians twice their ages.
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Hank Smith