“Mountain Bluebird” comes from the self-titled debut that East Nash Grass released in 2021 on Lamb Lyfe Records. It was written by the band’s resonator player, Gaven Largent, who also sings the lead on the record.
That audience is the reason the band exists. East Nash Grass was never put together to make a record. It began as a standing Tuesday-night residency at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in East Nashville — a place for session players and sidemen who spent the rest of the week backing other people to play something of their own, for the room rather than for a producer. The gig ran for years before the band recorded anything, and the name came from the neighbourhood.
The song is addressed to the bird of its title, a small, lonesome figure set against high country, and it carries the kind of plain, direct feeling that bluegrass writing has always done well. On the record the singing is backed by the working band: Harry Clark on mandolin, James Kee on guitar, Maddie Denton on fiddle, Cory Walker on banjo, Largent on resonator guitar and Geoff Saunders on bass. Several of them are writers in their own right, and the album moves between their songs and older material with an ease that comes from years of Tuesday nights.
