High energy bluegrass with grammy-nominated Cherryholmes

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

January 17, 2008

Back in 1999, the dynamic bluegrass family band known as Cherryholmes didn’t exist. Half of its youthful members hadn’t even picked up instruments yet. In five short years, this high-energy Nashville-based band would be named 2005 the International Bluegrass Music Association's Entertainers of the Year.

All six musicians pool their creative ideas, forming a sound and a style that is unmistakably their own with twin fiddles, Irish step-dancing, classic country yodeling, and old-time claw hammer banjo. Vocals and instrumentation are aggressive, without losing the precision of smooth, blended family harmony.

With their latest album release both topping the charts and nominated for a Grammy Award, Cherryholmes brings their exciting live show and fun, infectious style to The Paramount Theater on Thursday, January 31 at 8 pm. Special Media Sponsor is 1470 WBTX.

Cherryholmes has many qualities that make them unique, but the basis of their success lies in plain, old-fashioned hard work combined with shining star talent that only appears to glow more brightly with each performance. They embody the American Bluegrass dream.

Jere and Sandy Cherryholmes met in their church, married, and began raising a family of six children in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, California. Jere was a carpenter for the L.A. County school system, and Sandy home-schooled the children. In 1999, their eldest daughter Shelly died in her sleep at age 20 from respiratory failure, due to chronic heart problems. Hearing about a nearby bluegrass festival, the family decided to go to lift their spirits.

“We saw Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys and it changed our entire lives, going to that bluegrass festival and spending that day with them,” Sandy recalls. “On the way home, Jere said, ‘You know, what we really need right now is to do something special with our kids. Let’s start a bluegrass group.’ We decided who would play what and I started giving them music lessons.”

Cia (banjo), B.J. (fiddle), Skip (guitar), and Molly (fiddle) were assigned instruments. “Well, if you asked them, they would have all picked drums,” Sandy laughs. “Cia was playing guitar in church and singing, the little kids weren’t playing anything, and I was a piano player. So I decided that I would play whatever was left, and so would Jere. That left him with the bass and me with the mandolin.”

“When the younger ones were just starting, they couldn’t play much, so we orchestrated the music so that no one could tell,” Sandy explains.  “I divided the parts up and they only played one note each -- so it sounded like double stops. Then I played the mandolin with them, and they played on pitch. We taught Skip to play a few banjo licks on the mandolin, and then we just played really loud and fast,” she laughs. Within four months we started getting invitations from people wanting us to come and play.”

By year’s end, the family took a regular Saturday gig in the San Bernardino Mountains. “We started the dancing out of a desperate need for songs,” Sandy confides. “We only had about 15 songs and we had to play for six hours! I had been teaching them Irish step-dancing in their P.E. classes anyway, so we put together some dance routines.”

What started out as a desire to draw the family closer together during a time of sorrow developed into a legitimate part-time band. Cherryholmes won a few local contests and the promoters kept calling as their skills improved and their reputation spread.

After driving 32 hours round trip to play a show in Colorado, Jere realized they had reached their weekend limit. “People advised us that if we were going to do this with our kids, we needed to do it while they were young,” he said. “So we talked about it and prayed about it, and decided that we were going to sell the house and I would quit my job and we would just go -- and whatever happened, happened. I left my job in July of 2002.”

By 2003, Cherryholmes had made their first appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, Ernest Tubb’s Midnight Jamboree, the Country Music Association’s Music Fest, and the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Bluegrass FanFest.

In mid-October 2004, the band kicked off their own festival, the Best in Tradition with Cherryholmes, at Hoofer’s Gospel Barn in LaGrange, Georgia. “A lot of the energy when we play comes from the hard work and the long hours on the road when you’re tired. But then you get onstage and for all six of us, it almost blows up -- in a positive way. I think that has a lot to do with why we’re so driven and why we can do so much,” Sandy explains.

“The whole concept is that we have high-powered instrumentals that are at warp speed,” Jere says. “We’ve got bluegrass; we’ve got traditional stuff from the Stanleys and Monroe. We try to take the audience on a roller coaster ride, on purpose. We want them to experience highs and lows, and speed and excitement.”

The industry continues to acknowledge their success as well. Grammy-nominated for their first commercial release on Skaggs Family Records in 2006, self-titled Cherryholmes, a follow-up album, Cherryholmes II: Black and White, was released in June 2007. Opening up at #1 on the Billboard Charts, the new release is currently Grammy-nominated for Best Bluegrass Album of the Year.

"Jere concludes, “I heard someone say that bluegrass music has to change or evolve, or it will die. I don’t think it needs to be changed. It just needs new breath. I feel like maybe I’m offering something like that with my family.”

Seats are still available for the January 31 performance with Cherryholmes. Tickets are $28.50, $31.50, $34.50, and $39.50. Half-price student rush tickets and group discounts are offered.

Tickets are available online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333.

For more information about Cherryholmes, please visit www.cherryholmes.com.