Chartwatch

The Detour crew has been celebrating our climb up the BG charts — “My Life Just Ain’t a Bluegrass Song” is now #17 on the Bluegrass Unlimited national survey this month, our fifth month on that benchmark chart!  And we’ve shown up on the Bluegrass Music Profiles national chart, #26 in September!

The Pennsylvania Invasion

Missy Armstrong duets with Dale Ann Bradley -- courtesy Jimmy Kittle

The Detour crew took its chart-busting (#22 this month on the BU national survey!) road show into the Keystone State last weekend for some great music at the Out Among the Stars Bluegrass Festival in Benton, the heart of the Alleghenies. We had a great time jamming with Joe Walsh of the awesome Gibson Brothers and visiting with former Detourista Mike Sumner, now playing with Dale Ann Bradley. The number one taker for Weird Moment of the Trip was at an I-80 rest area in Pennsylvania, where a state worker with a chip on his shoulder stopped Jeff, Peter, and Scott from exercising their constitutional right to play frisbee.  Scott was well into preparing his closing argument for Detour v. State of Pennsylvania when we subsequently learned from coworkers at a later rest area that this guy was, to put it mildly, incorrect.

But the real highlight of the trip was having Dale Ann Bradley join us on stage for a stirring rendition of I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages with our own Missy Armstrong. The vocal blend was just heavenly! Thank you, Dale Ann, and thank you OATS for a great musical weekend!

For some great photos of our performance there, check out the photo albums posted online by the OATS photographer!

Creepin’ up the Charts

The crew is pretty excited, because we moved up a few slots to #26 on BU’s national bluegrass DJ survey for June — check out the playlist and listen to the show. And now we’re #33, up from #35, in the top 50 for cashbox’s national roots survey of bluegrass music!

If you’d like to help us reach a larger audience — and maybe continue to move up that chart! — feel free to request airplay from your favorite local, Internet, or satellite stations. Sirius/XM subscribers, you can call Bluegrass Junction at 1-877-98-BANJO or request a song online.

Detour breaks onto the national charts!

Today came the news that our recording of Jeff’s “My Life Just Ain’t a Bluegrass Song” is #30 on the Bluegrass Unlimited National Survey for May 2010! So there we are, with some great company: Sam Bush, Lou Reid, The Grascals, Claire Lynch, the Gibson Brothers, Alecia Nugent, Adam Steffey… It’s quite an accomplishment for a band on an independent record label to get this much airplay alongside the biggies in this business, like Rounder and Pinecastle. We’re feelin’ purty good ’bout it!

Welcome, Missy!

Team Detour has added a new member! Singer and guitar player Missy Armstrong has joined up with the Detouristas, enriching our vocal lineup with her bluesy and soaring voice. The boys had jammed with Missy many times (including a knockout all-nighter with Back Country’s Janet Beazley and a crowd of great musicians at last year’s Midwest Banjo Camp) that wowed us with the range and power of her voice. Missy and Zak have been pairing up on new material from Jeff, and we’re really excited to head out on the town! Missy has already joined us on stage for recent gigs near our home base in northern lower Michigan, and will be on stage for the entire evening for the first time at our upcoming job at Gopherwood in Cadillac. You can read more about Missy on our bios page.