Find the livestream here: Hillside Album Hour Livestream
Every note of our musical adventure through that dazzling landscape, along with several captivating scenic detours along the way, has been captured in Hi-Fidelity Stereophonic Ecstasy-Inducing Sound for your listening pleasure. Add the soaring vocals of our pal Sarah Dugas and the picking prowess of friends Sam Bush, Jens Kruger, Tony Williamson, and Red Young, and it's a trip well worth taking.
Led Zeppelin with banjos, mandos, and fiddles?! What's not to like? There's even some pretty wicked guitar playing. Go figure.
Click here to get your copy: Stairway To Hillside.
For our 10th Album Hour, we've decided to finally cover the classic album . . . oh wait . . . it's supposed to be a secret. Speaking of which, we invite you to head on over to our Facebook page to try to decipher our impossibly challenging array of clues. Trust us, they're harder and more obscure this year than ever before, simply because you've all gotten so good at figuring things out.
That said, give it your best shot at our 2017 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Hope to see you at Hillside on Saturday, April 29th for our 10th Album Hour and MerleFest's 30th Anniversary!
Featuring our pals Joan Osborne, Sam Bush, Jason Crosby, Jens Kruger, Jim Lauderdale, and Tony Williamson, this stellar performance is now available for sale over at Waybacks Mercantile. A memorable afternoon worth repeating or hearing for the first time. Head on over and pick one up!
Check out No Depression's review of last week's Hillside Album Hour performance of Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA, featuring our pals Joan Osborne, Jim Lauderdale, Sam Bush, Jens Kruger, and Tony Williamson.
Born In The USA: The Waybacks' Hillside Album Hour, MerleFest, April 25, 2015
Click below to head on over to The Waybacks' Mercantile & Boutique to procure a copy and experience your own deja vu or two!
Here are the first two clues:
CLUE #1: We promise to treat you right.
CLUE #2: Myrtle Grant, his ex, wanted nightly bar romance.
Click here and get your best guesses on record: 2015 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Just click on the link below to head on over to our Mercantile and Boutique.
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link:
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link:
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link:
If you've been around for all of these, or heard it through the grapevine, we began with Led Zeppelin II and rocked on with Sticky Fingers, Abbey Road, Eat A Peach, Are You Experienced, and Before The Flood. Along the way, we've been aided by a dazzling array of talented partners-in-crime, including Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, John Cowan, Joan Osborne, Susan Tedeschi, Sarah Dugas, Mike Farris, Della Mae, The Wailin' Jennys, Jim Lauderdale, Sam Bush, Jens Kruger, Jerry Douglas, John R. Burr, Kym Warner, Rob Ickes, and the list goes on.
In keeping with tradition, we'll be posting a series of oblique, obscure, and otherwise impossible-to-solve clues for you all to attempt to decipher. So unless you're incredibly gifted at breaking cryptic codes, you might just have to wait for the downbeat at the Hillside Stage to find out what we have in store.
But that shouldn't stop you from trying. Fabulous prizes beyond thought await the winner. Or something. Make your guesses in the spaces below. Guess early and often. But don't offer the same guess more than once. There are no bonus points for that.
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link:
2014 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
And now, for your guessing pleasure, is our first clue for 2014. Good luck and let the guessing begin!
CLUE #1
Imagine a murder of crows, a number of them too high to fly, unable to fit into the overhead compartment, yet not high enough to appease the demands of the Yellow Bird, nay the Blackbird.
We'll have digital downloads available in the not-too-distant future, but for now it's old school, just like Jimi did it.
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link: 2013 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link: 2013 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link: 2013 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Our run of past transgressions, in order of appearance, began with Led Zeppelin II and rocked on with Sticky Fingers, Abbey Road, Eat A Peach, and Are You Experienced. Along the way, we've been aided by a dazzling array of talented partners-in-crime, from Emmylou Harris to Elvis Costello, John Cowan to Joan Osborne, Susan Tedeschi to Sarah Dugas, Sam Bush to Jens Kruger to Jerry Douglas to Jim Lauderdale, and many, many, more.
For this year's model, we're digging into the vaults for something we think is pretty special. We hope you will, too.
In keeping with tradition, we'll be posting a series of oblique, obscure, and otherwise impossible-to-solve clues for you all to attempt to decipher. So unless you're incredibly gifted at breaking cryptic codes, you might just have to wait for the downbeat at the Hillside Stage to find out what we have in store.
But that shouldn't stop you from trying. Fabulous prizes beyond thought await the winner. Make your guesses in the spaces below. Guess early and often, but don’t offer the same guess more than once – there are no bonus points for that.
Make your guesses at our Facebook event page. Here's the link: 2013 Hillside Album Hour Guess-A-Thon!
Your first clue follows. Good luck to all. Let the guessing begin!
CLUE #1: This fabled recording studio is no stranger to the Album Hour.
Resident Waybacks guitarist extraordinaire James Nash has just released an instructional guitar video, aptly titled "Making the Acoustic Guitar Rock!" The two-hour DVD covers a wide range of topics, from basics like alternate picking and how to make bar chords and string bends easier, to more advanced strategies for moving around the fingerboard and playing over chord changes. James shows how he works influences like Keith Richards and Neil Young into his flatpicking, and shares ideas for improvising over bluegrass standards like "Cherokee Shuffle" and "Blackberry Blossom," as well as songs like "Hide Your Love Away," "Cocaine," and his own "Bright Place."
There's a lot here for players of all levels, as well as some exciting off-the-cuff studio jams. So, if you want to get a glimpse at how James does what he does on the acoustic and bring some new ideas and techniques to your own playing, head on over to our Mercantile & Boutique at the link below for more info.
We're happy to announce that we captured every note and are now able to share them with you via the modern miracle of CD or Digital Download, as you choose. To check out what took place on that sun-drenched afternoon under a fine Carolina blue sky, click the yellow peach colored link below, head on over to our Mercantile & Boutique, and get a healthy dose of those timeless tunes.
We're honored to be included on Jerry Jams for Rex, a recently released compilation of live performances of Jerry Garcia tunes to commemorate the 15th anniversary of his passing and benefit the ongoing efforts of the Rex Foundation.
Jerry Jams for Rex includes our version of Dupree's Diamond Blues, along with an array of inspired performances by the likes of Phish, Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers, The String Cheese Incident, Keller & The Keels, Railroad Earth, The Black Crowes, Moonalice, Yonder Mountain String Band, Widespread Panic, Hot Buttered Rum, and Steve Kimock Crazy Engine. An exceptional tribute to an exceptional musician and spirit.
To learn more about this great tribute to Jerry and help the Rex Foundation carry on their good work, please visit this link to sample tracks and purchase the CD or downloadable tunes. Jerry Jams For Rex A project well worth your support!
Many thanks to our guest artists and Bob Bernhardt, Maestro of the Symphony for a job very well done. A sampling of the reviews captures how good we all felt about the show:
"The Beatles would have been proud last night. The Chattanooga Symphony, Joan Osborne, The Waybacks, and John Cowan combined to cover The Beatles Abbey Road album, and did it in a most spectacular way. George Martin, The Beatles producer, Geoff Emerick and Alan Parsons, engineers on the Abbey Road Album, would be proud. Chattanoogans in attendance last night were proud of their symphony. I am proud of the folks at Riverbend who took a chance with this show and pulled off what may have been the greatest show in Riverbend history.
Opening with "Come Together", the group proceeded through the original album, scored beautifully, with Joan Osborne and John Cowan providing the lead vocals for the concert. The group even did an encore, which is hard to do once you cover the entire album, but they improvised and came up with a cover of "I Saw Her Standing There". Yes, The Beatles would have been proud, as was I."
- Bob Payne, The Chattanoogan
"Wow. I'm almost at a loss for words to describe how incredible it was hearing tonight's headlining performance of "Abbey Road" by the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera's partnership with vocalists John Cowan and Joan Osborne, banjo player Jens Kruger and The Waybacks.
Frankly, I don't think I've ever enjoyed live music quite as much as the hour long performance I just experienced.
Obviously, with such excellent source material as the Beatles legendary studio opus, it seems like it would be impossible to go wrong, but material that well-known is a decidedly double-edged sword. It's almost impossible to live up to a suite of music that well known, and if you try, your performance is automatically put under microscopic scrutiny. I think tonight’s show easily survived that scrutiny.
There's a reason "Abbey Road" was never performed live. Its intricacies and nuances were so heaped upon one another that to attempt to recreate it live would require, as it did tonight, a full orchestral backing. This was an exciting opportunity to experience the album in what I think is the form closest to how it would have been performed by the Fab Four live.
Guitarist/singer/songwriter James Nash, who founded The Waybacks, led us on a brilliant rendition that played to the ensemble's strengths. Cowan is the human equivalent of vocal dynamite, which I think was obvious to everyone after he lit into "Oh! Darling" ("Carry That Weight" was another standout).
Not to be outdone, Osborne showed she can dance like a Bond girl and fit vocal tongue and groove as the lead on "I Want You (She's So Heavy)."
The Waybacks and Kruger added incredibly spicy acoustic accompaniment in just the right places. If you think fiddle sounds like a weird ingredient to add to "The End" and "Her Majesty," you haven't heard Warren Hood give it a go. He made it sound, well, the word "good" comes to mind, but it doesn't do it justice. On the same song, Nash proved he’s got killer guitar chops that made me want to cut off my fingers I was so envious.
I know this comes across as a Beatles fan gushing, and I've never made a secret of my idol worship of the Liverpoolians, but I also scrutinize groups that cover them much more than I do tributers of any other group. This was, hands down, the best performance of Beatles music I've ever heard, including Abbey Road Live!, the Athens, Ga.-based group that make a living doing just this kind of tribute show.
If there's one thing that fans of the Beatles can take away from tonight, it's that to really do their studio work justice requires a full-on orchestra backing. The CSO's performance was just ideal to accompany this show. It seriously couldn’t have been done, well or not, without them. We should be proud to count such a group of musicians among our ranks.
Although the show was fairly short, at just an hour long, I've never been so entertained for that length of time. The cherry on top, however, was when we, the audience took to our collective feet and showed such appreciation that Nash came back out on stage.
"We didn't know Chattanooga was going to be this kind to us, so we didn't prepare anything (as an encore)," he said. "Give us a second, and we'll make something up."
I've gotta say, I envy their ability to improvise, if their bopping rendition of "I Saw Her Standing There" really was done on the fly. The awesome riffs seemed too good to be the product of flying by the seat of your pants, but these guys had already demonstrated they had incredible chops. I can't say I would have had high hopes for "Beatles banjo," which Nash asked Kruger for, but he certainly delivered the goods.
All in all, the best time I"ve had at Riverbend ... ever. It's hard to see how it can get any better than this."
-Casey Phillips, Chattanooga Times Fee Press
Our heroic cast of characters for the occasion included (in alphabetical order): Elvis Costello, Jerry Douglas. Sarah Dugas, Byron House, Jens Kruger, Jim Lauderdale, and Shannon Whitworth. Head on over the our Mercantile and Boutique and check it out. Abbey Road @ Hillside Not to be missed!
Many thanks to our special musical guests (in alphabetical order): Elvis Costello, Jerry Douglas. Sarah Dugas, Byron House, Jens Kruger, Jim Lauderdale, and Shannon Whitworth.
Head over to our Gallery for a few of the pics!
We'll savor this one for awhile.
Held at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds, site of many legendary Mountain Aire musical gatherings staged by Bill Graham Presents in years past and home of Mark Twain's famous Jumping Frog Jubilee, the festival includes sets by Furthur (Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, et. al.), Hot Tuna, Jackie Green, Galactic, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams, Mark Karan & Jemimah Puddleduck, The Mother Hips, and more.
There will be special late night shows, an acoustic stage, a Grateful Dead memorabilia exhibit, and who knows what other surprises. Hope you can come out and join us for a festive weekend in the Sierra Foothills.
Tickets go on sale March 26th. See details below.
The much-rumored, never-before-seen Waybacks Machine has been let loose from the basement laboratory and can now be found pictured on our home page in all its high-tech glory. This is where the music comes from, people, believe it or not.
Our cool little Media Player will offer audio and video content from a variety of sources for your listening and viewing pleasure and we'll regularly be updating it with new tunes, vintage performances, and other dazzling feats of prestidigitation.
Our Photo Gallery will house a broad sampling of the band doing what they do, onstage and off.
Our remodeled Mercantile and Boutique will be stocked with a vast array of melodies and merchandise designed to enhance your daily life.
All this and more!
We invite you to stay awhile, push buttons, click links, explore and discover, and return frequently!
"STICKY FINGERS" BY THE ROLLING STONES! The Waybacks performed the entire classic Stones album "Sticky Fingers" with the help of Emmylou Harris, John Cowan, Sam Bush, Rob Ickes, and Byron House. What a party! Check out "Wild Horses" with Emmylou Harris on YouTube! Many other clips up on YouTube as well...
Last year it was Led Zep II, performed in its entirety with an all-star cast including John Cowan, Pete Wernick, Byron House... Check out a JamBase review of Merlefest '08 with a feature on our Zep set.
- Free sample download track of us covering the James Brown classic "There Must Be A Reason," featuring our pal, the extraordinarily-talented Danny Barnes on banjo. Enjoy!
