Experience a high-energy style of American music featuring consummate musicianship and tight three-part harmony when Masters of Bluegrass takes the stage at the McKinney Performing Arts Center on Saturday, November 7. The concert features two national acts, Blue Highway and Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show.
With 11 highly-acclaimed albums to its credit, Blue Highway has garnered two Grammy nominations, a Dove Award, and numerous International Bluegrass Music Association awards. Best known for their highly entertaining, well-choreographed stage performances, the Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show keeps the spirit of the past alive with an authentic delivery of bluegrass and classic country music.
Don’t miss this chance to step back in time and experience authentic bluegrass music.
MASTERS OF BLUEGRASS
When: Saturday, November 7, 6–10 p.m.
Where: McKinney Performing Arts Center Courtroom Theater, 111 N. Tennessee St., McKinney, Texas 75069
Tickets: $25, available online.
ABOUT THE BANDS
Blue Highway has earned 24 collective IBMA Awards, 6 SPBGMA Awards, one Dove Award, and two Grammy nominations. Tim Stafford recently received honors as 2014 IBMA Songwriter of the Year and 2015 SPBGMA Guitar Player of the Year. Rob Ickes reigns as the Most Awarded Instrumentalist in the history of IBMA with 15 Dobro Player of the Year Awards, and was nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for his collaborative album Three Bells with Jerry Douglas and Mike Auldridge.
Blue Highway received the Most Radio Airplay of any Bluegrass Artist for 2014, per the 2014 Bluegrass Radio Airplay Chart released by Bluegrass Today. Their newest album, The Game, recently topped the national Bluegrass Unlimited album chart at #1 for seven consecutive months. It was also named the #1 Bluegrass Album of the Year in the Top 20 Albums of 2014 list in Bluegrass Today.
The Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show is a “bona fide hillbilly music extravaganza,” according to the band. Leader Karl Shiflett grew up in Texas with a love of traditional country music, learning to sing and play guitar at the age of nine. His musical influences include Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe, and Flatt & Scruggs. He began his professional career in bluegrass music as a side man in the 1980s and organized The Karl Shiflett & Big Country Show in 1993.
Shiflett and his band blend elements of classic country, western swing and honky-tonk, creating a sound uniquely their own. The Big Country Show is perhaps best known as a highly entertaining and fast-paced “retro” (single-microphone) stage production, a nostalgic down-home recreation of bluegrass and country music radio shows of the ’40s and ’50s.
