BlueRidge

The first New Quicksilver, with Baucom, Bibey, Randy Graham on bass and Jimmy Haley on guitar, was short-lived. When Baucom and Bibey brought it back in 1998 as BlueRidge, the original members were Baucom on banjo, Bibey on mandolin, Graham on bass and Wayne Winkle on guitar, all four of them singers. Sugar Hill released the band’s first album, Common Ground, in June 1999.

By 2002 the band had changed around its two founders. Junior Sisk, who had written songs that the Lonesome River Band made popular, came in on guitar and lead vocals, with Eddie Biggerstaff on bass and Dewey Brown on fiddle, and Sugar Hill issued Come Along With Me that year under the name Baucom, Bibey & BlueRidge. Sisk sang most of the leads; Biggerstaff sang “The New John Henry Blues” and Bibey “Livin’ It Up,” and Bibey contributed a fast mandolin instrumental, “Vandiver.” The album also included “Prayer Bells of Heaven” and “I’ll Still Write Your Name in the Sand.”

Baucom had left by the time of the third album, Side by Side, released by Sugar Hill in January 2004, which left Bibey as the only founding member. The band was now Bibey, Sisk, Biggerstaff, Alan Johnson on fiddle and Joey Cox on banjo, with three lead singers. It was recorded and mixed by its co-producer Wes Easter at the Eastwood Recording Studio in Cana, Virginia, and alongside traditional material it took in Jesse Winchester’s “Brand New Tennessee Waltz,” a Sisk original, “You Better Get,” and Bibey’s instrumental “Avalanche.”

The same five musicians made Gettin’ Ready, a gospel album released by Pinecastle in the spring of 2006. Nine of its twelve songs were originals by Sisk, Bibey, Paul Williams, Timmy Massey and David Johnson, and Sonya Isaacs sang as a guest on “Won’t They Be Surprised.” It was the band’s last record. BlueRidge broke up in 2006 when Bibey left to form Grasstowne with Steve Gulley and Phil Leadbetter, and in 2007 Sisk re-formed his own band, Ramblers Choice.