Featuring: Eddie Barbash, Maeve Gilchrist, Alex Hargreaves, Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz, Dominick Leslie, Jeff Picker, Ric Robertson, Ricky Skaggs, Nat Smith, Molly Tuttle, Cory Walker, and Stash Wyslouch A fiddle prodigy who received a GRAMMY® nod for his 2017 Compass Records release, PORTRAITS IN FIDDLES, Mike Barnett returns with a new album of 14 duets he’s titled + 1. Though he’s a Nashville native who became a professional player at a young age as part of Jesse McReynolds’ band, Barnett can still be considered among the recent crop of breakout talent from the Boston roots music scene that produced the likes of Lake Street Dive, I’m With Her and The Deadly Gentlemen, a newgrass outfit where he held fiddle duties from 2011 to 2014. Now relocated to Nashville where he holds down fiddle duties as a member of Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Barnett has been working on + 1 over a period of four years. He started recording when he was still living in NYC and was collaborating with fellow artists from his years in the Berklee Music Scene, including Sarah Jarosz; later tracks came once he moved to Nashville and include duets with fellow Nashvillians Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle and Dominick Leslie in addition to his current “boss” Skaggs. Drawing on the deep virtuostic talents of the album’s cast of players, the tracks flow seamlessly from traditional American tunes to newgrass with elements of Celtic music, pop, and jazz tinged improvisation thrown in for good measure. Standing on the shoulders of fiddle innovators Darol Anger, Stuart Duncan and Mark O’Connor, Barnett is poised to establish himself as one of his generation’s greatest visionaries on the fiddle. “Mike Barnett is a first-class fiddle player and all-around musician. He’s got the chops and knows how to use them, but he also has something to say, and that’s a rare quality in music these days.” —David “Dawg” Grisman
