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Vigo County natives, members of The Grascals, take Grammy nod Band's 2005 debut CD "The Grascals" nominated for Best Bluegrass Album in upcoming 48th annual Grammy Awards By Mark Bennett/Tribune-Star In an interview a few weeks ago, Terry Eldredge tried to describe the bluegrass sound of The Grascals. "It's high energy, and there's a lot of soul to it. And it's got a country feel, too," Eldredge explained. "A lot of bluegrassers don't like that, but it has got a country feel to it -- old country." Apparently that blend satisfied the folks at The Recording Academy in California. The band's 2005 debut CD "The Grascals" has received a nomination for Best Bluegrass Album in the upcoming 48th annual Grammy Awards. The Recording Academy announced the nominations Tuesday. The Grascals' six-man lineup includes two former Vigo County residents. Eldredge, their lead singer and rhythm guitarist, is a 42-year-old West Terre Haute native who moved to Nashville after graduating from West Vigo High School. And Jimmy Mattingly, The Grascals' fiddle and mandolin player, lived in Terre Haute as a young boy who got his first violin experience as a fifth-grader at Franklin Elementary School. Ironically, even though Eldredge and Mattingly lived in Vigo County at the same time, they didn't become acquainted until their paths crossed in Nashville music circles. In one of their early conversations, Eldredge and Mattingly realized they had both, as children, attended a concert by bluegrass and country greats Lester Flatt and Marty Stuart in the Terre Haute South Vigo High School auditorium. "We were both at the same show and didn't even know it and wouldn't meet for almost 30 years," Mattingly, 43, told the Tribune-Star last month. The other Grascals are vocalist Jamie Johnson, David Talbot on banjo and acoustic guitar, Terry Smith on upright bass and Danny Roberts on mandolin. Earlier this year, The Grascals received two prominent awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association. They won Emerging Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for their single "Me and John and Paul" -- a hit on that genre's charts. On the Grammy list, Best Bluegrass Album falls in the country music category. The other four nominations went to Blue Highway for the album "Marbletown," Cherryholmes for "Cherryholmes," the Del McCoury Band for "The Company We Keep" and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage for "Ragin' Live." At least one other Vigo Countian received Grammy honors, albeit posthumously and as a non-performer. The poem "Desiderata" written by Terre Haute native Max Ehrmann recited on a record by Les Crane received a Grammy in 1971 for Best Spoken Word Recording. Ehrmann wrote the poem in the 1920s, and he died in 1945. The latest Grammy nominations include recordings released between Oct. 1, 2004, and Sept. 30, 2005. The winners will be announced at the Grammy Awards show at 8 p.m. Feb. 8, during a live CBS broadcast from the Staples Center at Los Angeles. Mark Bennett can be reached by telephone at 1-800-783-8742, Option 6, Ext. 377, by e-mail at mark.bennett@tribstar.com |
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