Sam Bush - Storyman (2016) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Sam Bush’s new album Storyman is a freewheeling collection that gleefully picks and chooses from jazz, folk, blues, reggae, country swing, and bluegrass to create a jubilant noise only classifiable as the 'Sam Bush sound.' Many of the songs are stories––several of them true––and the legendary mandolin player co-wrote every one of them with friends, including the late Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Jon Randall Stewart, Jeff Black, bandmate Stephen Mougin, and others. Storyman continues Bush’s tradition of creating something completely new and fresh for each recording, this time focusing on stories from some of the most popular songsmiths of our time.

For Bush, a lifetime of channeling his energy into his art has led to stylistic innovations that have changed the course of bluegrass and roots music alike. Bush has taken home three GRAMMY awards, received a Lifetime Achievement for Instrumentalist Award from the Americana Music Association, hosted the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, and has been honored as Mandolin Player of the Year four times. In March 2010, Legislation passed in Kentucky, Bush’s home state, that officially named Bowling Green the 'Birthplace of Newgrass,' and Sam Bush the 'Father of Newgrass.'

Bush took about four years to record the latest installment in his legacy. 'It’s still important to me that all of the songs fit together on an album,” he says. 'I’m well aware that people buy individual tracks digitally, and that’s good. But I still think of it as an album––a body of work. And I’m really satisfied with these songs. It’s taken a while, but I sure am happy with them.”

Produced by Bush and recorded partially at Neptone Recording Studios in Destin, Florida, and Bush’s longtime go-to, Nashville’s Sound Emporium, Storyman is the best of friends swapping tales, and jamming for the sake of jamming.

'If there is a love in it, it’s the love of playing music together,” Bush reflects. 'When we play live on stage, if people can feel the joy we’re feeling, then we have succeeded. That’s the goal to me of playing music: Did the audience feel something?”

Tracklist:
01. Play By Your Own Rules
02. Everything Is Possible
03. Transcendental Meditation Blues
04. Greenbrier
05. Lefty’s Song
06. Carcinoma Blues
07. Bowling Green
08. Handmics Killed Country Music
09. Where’s My Love
10. It’s Not What You Think
11. I Just Wanna Feel Something

Personnel:
Sam Bush, mandolin, fiddle, vocals
Todd Parks, bass, vocals
Scott Vestal, banjo, vocals
Stephen Mougin, guitar, vocals
Chris Brown, drums

Recorded at Neptone Recording Studios in Destin, Florida and Sound Emporium, Nashville
Produced by Sam Bush