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Two of your favorite bluegrass artists together in Meadow Hall! Luke Bulla has been singing and playing music most of his life. Touring with and singing in his family band from age four, Luke took up the fiddle at seven. Over the course of the next few years, he won the National Fiddle Contest (in Weiser, Idaho) six times in his respective age categories. His seventh win came in the Grand Champion division at age sixteen, making him the youngest to have earned the title at the time. Entering Nashville’s Grand Master Fiddle Championship at age ten, Luke distinguished himself by being the youngest person to have made the top ten. In the spring of 1999, Luke moved to Nashville to establish himself as a full time musician. He spent his early years in Tennessee playing fiddle in Ricky Skaggs’ band, Kentucky Thunder, which earned him his first Grammy Award. In addition to violin, Luke plays guitar and mandolin, and sings and writes songs. Following the Skaggs stint, he became a member of the John Cowan Band. More recently Luke has performed and/or recorded with Brandi Carlile, Jim Lauderdale, Darrell Scott, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, Bryan Sutton, Kevin Costner & Modern West, Russ Barenberg Trio, Shawn Colvin, Tony Rice, Chris Thile, Peter Rowan, Patty Griffin, Glen Phillips, Rodney Crowell, and Earl Scruggs, to name a few. Luke was also a perennial instructor at Mark O’Connor’s fiddle camps in his early Nashville years. With his long-time friend Casey Driessen, Luke founded the band Wisechild, which toured briefly with John Mayer and Counting Crows. He also had a band collaboration, W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration), which included members Sean Watkins (Nickel Creek, Fiction Family), Glen Phillips (Toad The Wet Sprocket), Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek, I’m With Her), Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, The Attractions, Los Lobos), Greg Leisz (Joni Mitchell, Wilco, Sheryl Crow, Beck), and Davey Faragher (Elvis Costello and the Imposters, Cracker). In 2009, Luke released a solo EP featuring Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Aoife O’Donovan and more. That same year, Lyle Lovett asked Luke to join his Large Band, with whom he toured full time until 2023. In 2015 Luke co-founded a Bluegrass/Americana record label, Pure Music | Nashville, with music and business executive John L. Heithaus. Luke’s LP, Who Loves You Better, was released by the label in May of 2016. Recorded at Zac Brown’s studio, Southern Ground Nashville, the LP was produced by Grammy winner Bryan Sutton. Who Loves You Better showcases featured vocal performances by Sharon & Cheryl White, Maura O’Connell, Lee Ann Womack, and Sara Jarosz, complemented by a veritable A-List of Americana’s finest musicians, including: Jerry Douglas, Noam Pikelny, Sam Bush, John Cowan, Sam Grisman, Bryan Sutton and more. Currently Luke is happy to be touring again and is working on a new EP. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Michael Daves grew up playing bluegrass in the grand old tradition of staying up late & singing loud. Although he’s since moved north, the Southern roots permeate his music, however traditional or experimental. Heralded as “a leading light of the New York bluegrass scene” by the New York Times, Daves has garnered attention for his work with Chris Thile, Steve Martin, Tony Trischka, and others in addition to his solo performances. Daves’ most recent project is a two-album set, Orchids and Violence on Nonesuch Records. Both discs are produced by Daves and have identical track listing of mostly traditional bluegrass songs. The first features straightforward interpretations of them and was recorded live to tape in a 19th-century church by Daves and a band of roots-music innovators: bassist Mike Bub, fiddler Brittany Haas, mandolinist Sarah Jarosz, and banjo player Noam Pikelny. The second disc was recorded in Daves' home studio and includes drums and electric instruments, mostly played by Daves, taking a raw, experimental rock approach to the same old-time material. "The identical track listing makes for a good comparison study," says the New York Times music critic Nate Chinen in his review, "and to his credit, it can be hard to pick which version of a tune is best." Daves previously recorded bluegrass standards on Sleep with One Eye Open, his Nonesuch debut, a duo session with mandolinist Chris Thile (Punch Brothers, Nickel Creek) that earned the pair a 2011 Grammy nomination. Although he is best known as a roots musician, Daves gravitated toward experimental music and jazz while studying at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Relocating to Brooklyn in 2003, he began to crave the social interaction and musical challenges of bluegrass: "In Western Massachusetts, I was mostly doing jazz. By the time I moved to New York, I was ready to leave that behind, get back to my personal roots in bluegrass music. There were good jam sessions in New York and I was excited to reenter a regular jamming culture in the city. And I was getting back into rock music, too. The Brooklyn scene in 2003 and 2004 was pretty fertile. There was a lot of great, kind of raw, experimental rock music happening at that time, drawing me in, scratching an itch."
