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SUMMARY:Steep Canyon Rangers
DESCRIPTION:Steep Canyon Rangers arrive at a moment of renewal and reaffirmation with Next Act, their 15th studio album set to be released May 22, 2026. The record represents a conscious tightening of focus: a return to the bluegrass foundations that first bound the band together, approached with the confidence and emotional range earned through years of collective evolution. It is an affirmation that bluegrass still contains endless expressive possibility. Next Act finds the Rangers sounding deeply at home in their own musical language, drawing strength from tradition while continuing to write new chapters within it.Formed in North Carolina and shaped equally by the Appalachian Mountains and the Piedmont, Steep Canyon Rangers have long occupied a singular space in American roots music. From their earliest recordings, the band demonstrated an unusual ability to honor traditional bluegrass forms while allowing contemporary songwriting, literary influence, and regional storytelling to seep naturally into the music. Over time, this balance earned them both bluegrass credibility and broader Americana acclaim, culminating in a Best Bluegrass Album GRAMMY Award for 2013’s Nobody Knows You, additional nominations for Rare Bird Alert (2012) and North Carolina Songbook (2020), and an induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.In recent years, as their audience expanded and their songwriting reach grew wider, the Rangers began to feel a pull back toward the elemental forces that shaped them: acoustic instruments speaking clearly, songs built for ensemble interplay, and stories grounded in lived experience and regional memory. Next Act emerges from that impulse.Steep Canyon Rangers is made up of Graham Sharp on banjo and vocals, Mike Guggino on mandolin/mandola and vocals, Aaron Burdett on guitar and vocals, Nicky Sanders on fiddle and vocals, Mike Ashworth on drums, dobro, percussion and vocals, and Barrett Smith on bass, guitar, and vocals.-------Catch the unveiling of The Golden Hours, a new Charlottesville-based band formed by the members of acclaimed indie-folk acts Lowland Hum and David Wax Museum. These musicians have been touring and recording for over 20 years, featured on CBS Saturday Morning and NPR’s Tiny Desk, and lauded by The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME and Rolling Stone, among others. The Golden Hours’ debut record Terra Nova (to be released in 2026) includes “Day Wheel,” an NPR Music Song of the Day. The forthcoming album brings together the power of these four songwriters in an artifact that is simultaneously lush and distilled, emotionally probing, and conceptually expansive.
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