June 28, 2024 — Though Mountain Home Music Company’s Sideline has been known — and awarded — for quintessential bluegrass in songs like “Thunder Dan” and “Fast As I Can Crawl,” the group’s latest release is a finely crafted reminder that the powerhouse ensemble can serve up a down-tempo tale of a broken heart that’s every bit as compelling as the barnburners.
With a wistful opening fiddle figure that gives way to Bailey Coe’s mournful lead vocal, “I’m In Tennessee” is, as guitarist Skip Cherryholmes notes, “a beautiful piece that we had considered for the Ups, Downs, and No Name Towns project, only not making the cut because there were too many good songs to pick from.”
“As an artist,” he adds, “the beauty of a song like this is that it can stand on its own two feet with very solid, identifiable lyrics, so you are challenged with building the music around it without distracting or taking away from its self-sufficient existence. I feel that the guys did an amazing job picking up the same paintbrush that [songwriter] Ashby Frank set down, and continuing the ‘skyline’ that became this song.”
As Cherryholmes suggests, the group — including, on this session, Steve Dillingsinging harmonies, bassist Kyle Windbeck, Matt Flake (fiddle) and harmony singer and mandolinist Nick Goad — focuses so fully on Frank’s moving evocation of a forlorn, left-behind lover that only a brief solo from Goad punctuates the song’s three verses and smoothly melodic chorus:
Those big city lights might shine brighter
Than anything you ever saw with me
I’d give anything at all to make you happy
For one more chance, I’d get down on my knees
But you’re in LA, and I’m in Tennessee
You’re in LA, and I’m in Tennessee
And if Cherryholmes gets in the first word to characterize “I’m In Tennessee,” his fellow founding member, Dilling, gets in the last: “I love this song! I think it is as strong as anything that we have ever recorded!”
“I’m In Tennessee” is streaming in Dolby Atmos spatial audio on Apple Music, Amazon Music and TIDAL. Listen to it 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.