Balsam Range

Balsam Range is a bluegrass and acoustic music group founded in 2007. The five members are all from Haywood County in western North Carolina. They are the 2014 and 2018 IBMA Entertainer of the Year recipients. Their other accolades include IBMA Vocal Group of the Year (2014, 2015), Song of the Year (2011, 2015), and Album of the Year (2013, 2017).[1] Balsam Range consists of its original five members: on fiddle and lead vocals, Buddy Melton; on mandolin and vocals, Darren Nicholson; on upright bass, resonator guitar, and vocals, Tim Surrett; on guitar and vocals, Caleb Smith; and on banjo, Dr. Marc Pruett.

Members

Buddy Melton (fiddle, vocals) picked up fiddle in college, and is also accomplished on the bass. He performed with Jubal Foster before joining Balsam Range. Buddy has also performed with David Holt and Doc Watson. Melton won the honor of "Male Vocalist of the Year" at the 2014 and 2018 International Bluegrass Music Awards.[2]

Darren Nicholson (mandolin, vocals) has performed many times on the Grand Ole Opry stage, and has toured with The Crowe Brothers and Alecia Nugent among many other artists. He is a Grammy nominee and multiple IBMA award-winner. He has released three solo albums, including 2014's Things Left Undone (featuring John Driskell Hopkins and Rhonda Vincent as well as many others) and 2018's Fret a Spell, a collection of instrumental bluegrass recordings.[3]

Tim Surrett (bass and dobro) has performed with the gospel group The Kingsmen Quartet, winning multiple awards for "Gospel Musician of the Year". He also has a place in the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame. Surrett has also performed with Tony Rice, Ralph Stanley, Brad Paisley and Vince Gill. In 2014, Surrett won the "Mentor of the Year" award at the IBMAs for his inspiration and work with young artists.[4]

Caleb Smith (guitar, vocals) performed as a founding member of gospel group Harvest and also won "Male Vocalist of the Year" and "Guitar Player of the Year" for the Power Grass Music Awards. He is also an accomplished luthier, building Smith Custom Guitars for clients such as Zac Brown, Bryan Sutton, and many more. [5]

Dr. Marc Pruett (banjo) is a Grammy-winning banjo picker who has played on 4 albums with Ricky Skaggs including his first record in 1974 and the 1997 Grammy award winner Bluegrass Rules! He also led the Marc Pruett Band for 10 years. His music was used for over a dozen years in the highly acclaimed outdoor drama Unto These Hills in Cherokee, NC. Dr. Pruett earned his honorary doctorate from Western Carolina University in 2010 for his contributions to bluegrass music.[6]

Founding and Early Years

"In the beginning, we just got together, five guys from the same county that just wanted to play music together just for the fun of it," said Buddy Melton in a 2018 interview. "We were just living in the same town and happened to be great friends, so it was an ideal scenario." [7] Melton and Dr. Marc Pruett had recently performed together as members of Whitewater Bluegrass Company, and band members had recently recorded on each solo efforts by Melton, Nicholson, and Surrett.[8] When the young band gathered to record their first album, they did not yet have a name. Inspiration for a band name came from the Great Balsam Range, a mountain range that surrounds their home county. “We thought it was a little pretentious to have ‘great’ in there, so we just stripped that off of it and called us Balsam Range,” Melton says. [9] From these initial recording sessions came Marching Home, Balsam Range's debut album, released in October of 2007. The album included guest appearances from Joe Diffie, Doyle Lawson, Jim Van Cleve, Tony Rice, and Jerry Salley,[10] and featured "Blue Mountain," which remains the band's most-requested song. [11]

Albums and Achievements

Balsam Range followed up Marching Home with Last Train to Kitty Hawk in 2009, with the title song hitting #1 on Bluegrass Unlimited's National Bluegrass Survey in September of that year. [12]Trains I Missed, the title song of their third album, earned Balsam Range their first IBMA Award, Song of the Year, in 2011. Named for their hometown of Canton, North Carolina, which houses a paper mill, Papertown spent five consecutive months at the number one spot on the Bluegrass Unlimited National Bluegrass Survey chart.[13] The project garnered seven IBMA nominations for Balsam Range in 2013, and they walked away with the Album of the Year honor.[14]

Since 2012, the band have been frequent collaborators with John Driskell Hopkins, founding member of the Zac Brown Band. Hopkins heard Balsam Range on bluegrass radio in 2011 and was so impressed, he immediately bought all their music. After making an immediate personal and musical connection upon meeting, they decided to join forces and record an album. In September 2012, Daylight was completed, and officially released January 2013. [15] Balsam Range recorded and released a limited-run live album, Live at the Altamont, in that same year. This recording was made available only for members of Balsam Nation, the group's fan club. [16]

2014's Five garnered another accolade for the band; its leadoff single Moon Over Memphis was named Song of the Year at the 2015 International Bluegrass Music Association awards, where the band also took home the Vocal Group of the Year trophy. Balsam Range's next album, Mountain Voodoo, released in 2016, was named Album of the Year at the 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association awards. [17]

Through their work with Hopkins, the band became acquainted with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra, who provided orchestral accompaniment for Balsam Range's next two albums: It's Christmas Time, a 2017 holiday EP, and Mountain Overture, a complete album featuring new versions of Balsam Range's best-loved songs.

Aeonic, released on January 4, 2019, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. The album remained on the chart for 5 consecutive weeks, also making appearances on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart, Americana/Folk Chart and Current Country Chart. Aeonic was featured in the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone Country, Billboard Magazine, and more.[18] Also in 2019, Balsam Range released The Gospel Collection, a compilation of gospel recordings from past projects.

Art of Music Festival

In December of 2016, the band introduced the Balsam Range Art of Music Festival, a two-day event held at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, in the group's home county. [19] The festival, created with the goal of inviting Balsam Range fans from all over the world to visit their home of Western North Carolina, now generates upwards of $400,000 per year in revenue impact for Haywood County. [20] The festival has featured performances by Hopkins, the Atlanta Pops Orchestra, Darrell Scott, Shenandoah, Chloe Agnew, and many more.

    Discography
    • Marching Home (2007)
    • Last Train To Kitty Hawk (2009)
    • Trains I Missed (2010)
    • Papertown (2012)
    • Daylight (with John Driskell Hopkins) (2012)
    • Live at the Altamont (2013)
    • Five (2014)
    • Mountain Voodoo (2016)
    • It's Christmas Time (2017)
    • Mountain Overture (with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra Ensemble) (2018)
    • Aeonic (January 4, 2019)
    • The Gospel Collection (2019)

    Singles
    • The Girl Who Invented the Wheel (2018)
    • Hobo Blues (2018)
    • Get Me Gone (2018)
    • Richest Man (2020)
    • Grit and Grace (2020)

    References
    1. "Recipients & Inductees". IBMA. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
    2. "Recipients & Inductees". IBMA. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
    3. "Darren Nicholson Music page".
    4. "2014 IBMA Winners".
    5. "Smith Custom Guitars Website".
    6. "Musician Tip No. 61 – Marc Pruett". Bluegrass Country. WAMU. Archived from the original on July 7, 2010. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
    7. Zimmerman, Lee (2018-12-20). "Buddy Melton talks Balsam Range and the evolution of bluegrass". Bluegrass Today. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
    8. Admin. "Newly formed Balsam Range features some of the finest". www.smokymountainnews.com. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
    9. "Balsam Range Interview, Plus Listen to 'The Rambler' Song Premiere". Billboard. 2019-01-03. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
    10. Thompson, Richard (2007-09-29). "Balsam Range are Marching Home". Bluegrass Today. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
    11. admin (2018-06-11). "Strings Done Differently". Americana Music Magazine - Bluegrass, Roots, Folk, Blues, and Old-Time. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
    12. Admin. "'Mountain Traditions' concert to benefit Shindig on the Green". www.smokymountainnews.com. Retrieved 2020-05-25.
    13. "Bluegrass Unlimited - Bluegrass Unlimited content". Bluegrass Unlimited. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
    14. "Recipients & Inductees". IBMA. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
    15. "John Driskell Hopkins and Balsam Range Release "Daylight" on Jan 22 | Cybergrass Bluegrass Music News". www.cybergrass.com. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
    16. Thompson, Richard (2013-03-21). "New Live Album from Balsam Range". Bluegrass Today. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
    17. "Recipients & Inductees". IBMA. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
    18. "Still Riding High!". Balsam Range. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
    19. Hart, Kelsay (2016-11-21). "New album, new festival: Balsam Range is keeping busy". WLOS. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
    20. Viau, Carol. "2019 Balsam Range Art of Music festival surrounds Haywood in music". The Mountaineer. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
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