Chris Elliott

He met the guitarist Taylor Sims and the bassist Jessica Smith in 2002 at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, which ran a commercial music program. With the mandolin and fiddle player Alex Johnstone they became the house band at Harmel’s Guest Ranch near Crested Butte, Colorado, in 2004, playing three or four nights a week, then went back to Levelland in 2005 so that Elliott, Sims and Johnstone could return to school. In 2006 the four moved together to Lyons. All of them sang and wrote, and Elliott was credited on banjo on the band’s recordings.

Spring Creek self-released Rural & Cosmic Bluegrass in 2006, and in 2007 became the first band to win the band competitions at Telluride and at RockyGrass in the same year. Each member wrote at least one song for Lonesome Way to Go (2008), the band’s first record with a producer. Rebel Records signed the band in September 2008, and Way Up on a Mountain, produced by Jeff White in Denver, came out in May 2009; it included “Tangled in the Pines,” written by Elliott’s cousin Ronnie Elliott. That autumn Spring Creek played showcases at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s convention in Nashville.