September 13, 2024 — “It’s really awesome to watch a band take an older song and make it into their own without completely dissecting the original,” says Sideline’sSkip Cherryholmes, as he recalls how the sextet adopted — and adapted — “Is It True” for their newest Mountain Home Music Company single. “When [banjoist and harmony singer] Steve [Dilling] brought this one to the table it was obvious that it was a Sideline song.”
Indeed, Sideline’s treatment of the classic — written and recorded 71 years ago by bluegrass Hall of Famers Jim & Jesse (McReynolds) — is not only an exhilarating listen in its own right, but offers an example of how the genre’s balance of tradition and originality operates, giving a nod both to the original version and the song’s adoption by the late singer-songwriter, Harley Allen, whose version Dilling first heard. “What caught my attention about this song,” he notes, “was that it is one of the rare cases where the verses have harmony all the way through, and the choruses are sung solo. Typically, it’s vice versa.”
Indeed, while the banjo opens and closes Sideline’s take with a hard-driving statement of the verse’s melody, the group — Cherryholmes, Dilling, bassist Kyle Windbeck, Matt Flake (fiddle), mandolinist and harmony vocalist Nick Goad and lead singer Bailey Coe — departs from both the original and Allen’s version by featuring musical dialogues between fiddle and mandolin on solos built over the chorus. The result is a slice of straight-ahead bluegrass that blends old and new with the signature flair that Sideline fans have come to expect from the group.
“We applied our drive and energy to it,” explains Cherryholmes, “and let the lyrics do the rest of the work. It is also one of the very few — if any — Sideline songs with a trio throughout the whole song, and Bailey nailed the lead part. High-powered and exciting!”
Listen to “Is It True” HERE.
About Sideline
Sideline is a pedigreed powerhouse whose style has set the pace in Bluegrass for over two decades. Founders Steve Dilling and Skip Cherryholmes can all claim their own historical significance to the genre as members of highly awarded groups, multiple Grand Ole Opry appearances and years of national and international touring. What started as a side project for the seasoned players soon moved to the front and center and they began to record and release albums in earnest. In 2019 Sideline won the IBMA Song Of The Year Award for their hit single, “Thunder Dan.”
To listen to Sideline reminds the fan of why so many people fall in love with Bluegrass in the first place; pulse-pounding drive, songs sung from the heart, perfected timing and dynamics as well as a visceral emotion in the rendering. A band that was started as an off-season fun experiment has become a full-time dream team of players and singers.
The band, recorded or live, moves dynamically from well chosen, hard-hitting neo-traditional covers of classic songs to new material curated by a band with a perfect sense of who they are and what they have to say. Combine all this with their on-stage energy and finesse as well as their powerful and affecting harmonies, and you have the embodiment of the North Carolina Bluegrass sound. Sideline has released 4 national projects and records for the highly awarded Mountain Home Music Company based near Asheville, NC.