Dan Brooks

The first lineup had Jim Stack on guitar, Alan Stack on mandolin and fiddle, Weaver on bass, Brooks on Dobro and Calvin Leport on banjo. On Midnight Loneliness (Pinecastle, 1992) Brooks sang lead on the traditional “Oh, Mary,” sang baritone on Don Sowards’s “I Call Her Sunshine,” and wrote “Rain All Night” with Weaver. On Heartbreak City (1994), recorded at Suite 2000 in Nashville, he took the lead on the band’s version of “Mystery Train” and the baritone on “If God Be for Us,” and on Pure Homemade Love (1996), made at Studio 1103 in Nashville, he sang baritone on Randall Hylton’s “Keep the Candles Burning.” That lineup’s records brought the band several top-ten bluegrass radio singles, two IBMA award nominations and three Entertaining Band of the Year awards from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America. By the gospel album What About Him? (1997) he had left, and Gene Wooten and Rob Ickes played Dobro as guests.

In October 2016 Brooks rejoined Jim and Alan Stack, Weaver and Leport for four shows at the Bob Evans Farm Festival in Rio Grande, Ohio, the first time in twenty years that the original Rarely Herd had played together.