× Chance McCoy and his band are in the Benelux this month promoting "Wander Wide"

Chance McCoy and his band are in the Benelux this month promoting "Wander Wide"

06-10-2019

When he discovered old-time mountain music he fell head over heels, instantly drawn in by the raw honesty and dark beauty of it all. Chance McCoy grabbed himself a fiddle and headed straight to the source, apprenticing under a series of master Appalachian players and going on to win the Fiddle, Banjo and Dulcimer competitions at the prestigious West Virginia State Championships and began touring the country with the newly formed “Chance McCoy and the Appalachian String Band”.

Life wasn’t all roses, though. Whatever dreams he carried in his head didn’t match up, and McCoy watched helplessly as his life began to slowly unravel around him on the road. But in 2012, an invite to join Old Crow Medicine Show changed everything— taking him from living in a rundown mountain cabin to performing at some of the most prestigious venues in the world. Within a few short years, he was playing with musicians including Willie Nelson, John Prine, Mumford & Sons, The Avett Brothers, The Lumineers, John Prine, Ke$ha, Yelawolf and Margo Price. In 2014, his first recording with Old Crow garnered them a Grammy for Best Folk Album. Nonetheless, he continued to write his own solo material even in the midst of extensive touring. When a break appeared on the horizon, McCoy jumped at the chance to focus on his own art.

His new material reveals a remarkable depth and versatility far beyond anything heard from him yet. Captivating in its cross of the traditional and the progressive, his latest music shows little regard for the conventional boundaries of genre and decade, blending old-school bluegrass melodies with modern rock and roll arrangements and rich, atmospheric production. Captivating in its cross of the traditional and the progressive, his latest music shows little regard for the conventional boundaries of genre and decade, blending old-school bluegrass melodies with modern rock and roll arrangements and rich, atmospheric production.

A virtuoso fiddler, guitarist, and banjo player, McCoy is best known as a member of Grammy-winning Americana powerhouse Old Crow Medicine Show, but ‘Wander Wide,’ his debut solo album, reveals a remarkable depth and versatility far beyond anything we’ve heard from him yet. Captivating in its cross of the traditional and the progressive, the record shows little regard for the conventional boundaries of genre and decade, blending old-school bluegrass melodies with modern rock and roll arrangements and rich, atmospheric production. McCoy based the album off of a live residency show he put on weekly at The Basement in Nashville, and the studio recordings here tap into the same exuberant energy he brought to the stage every night, complete with dazzling performances that unexpectedly twist and turn, sometimes transitioning from one tune to the next within the same track.

He brings his band over to the Benelux this month for four shows:

18/10: Eeklo, BE - N9 Villa
19/10: Utrecht, NL - Ramblin' Roots
20/10: Tilburg, NL - Paradox
21/10: Nijmegen, NL - Merleyn

 

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