Biography

Though bluegrass music has had its share of homegrown songwriters from the start — indeed, memorable songs from “Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe and Hall of Famers such as Lester Flatt, Carter Stanley and Don Reno were foundational entries in the genre’s world-ranging songbook — savvy artists have always looked beyond the canon for material that lent itself to the bluegrass treatment. And since the early 1960s, when bluegrass and the emergent folk revival first crossed paths, arguably no songwriter from the latter world has seen more of their songs adopted by the former than GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Tom Paxton. From early covers of his epochal “The Last Thing On My Mind” by Bluegrass Hall of Famers, The Dillards and the Kentucky Colonels, to regular performances of “Leaving London” by IBMA Entertainer of the Year Billy Strings and Ashby Frank’s version of “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,” which landed a place among the 30 most-played tracks on bluegrass radio in 2023, Paxton’s creative visions have echoed in bluegrass studios, on bluegrass stages and in bluegrass jam sessions for generations.

Now a broad-ranging group of artists in and around bluegrass are paying explicit tribute to this vital legacy in a new Mountain Home Music Company collection — Bluegrass Sings Paxton — that places these classic songs alongside less familiar, but no less finely crafted material from the Tom Paxton songbook, including new songs written especially for the project.

The set makes an auspicious debut with a first single that features beloved singer — and three-time IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year — Claire Lynch. Backed by a band that includes a pair of award-winning instrumentalists in banjo player Kristin Scott Benson and fiddler Deanie Richardson, alongside guitarist Chris Jones, Darren Nicholson (mandolin) and bassist Nelson Williams (Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, New Dangerfield), Lynch’s take on “I Give You The Morning” is a glowing evocation of an intimate moment that reveals the timeless beauty of the 55 year old song.

“Claire Lynch has one of the most recognizable and expressive voices in bluegrass,” notes Mountain Home’s Jon Weisberger, who produced the album with multi-instrumentalist and two-time GRAMMY recipient Cathy Fink. “We knew we wanted to have that voice on the album, and her choice of ‘I Give You The Morning’ was a great call — it’s got an old-fashioned ballad construction, a deliciously unusual, yet natural rhythm to the first lines in each verse, a captivating melodic rise in the refrain, and an evocative lyric — and the band has just the right balance of strength and delicacy to complement those same qualities in her approach. It’s a performance that brings out so many aspects of what makes Tom Paxton’s songs so memorable, and I can’t think of a better way to introduce this project to listeners!”