The Bluegrass Alliance - The Bluegrass Alliance (1969)

The band was originally formed by fiddler Lonnie Peerce in the late '60s and within a few years was already busy with gigs at fairs, clubs, festivals, and colleges. The group appeared on the Grand Ole Opry at least a dozen times over the next decade and cut three albums. One of the first groups to be stuck with the gimmicky label of "new grass," ome of the players who have passed through the Bluegrass Alliance in its various incarnations provides ample evidence of how important this outfit was in the development of bluegrass. Top-flight pickers who have worked in the Bluegrass Alliance include multi-instrumentalist Chuck Nation, mandolinist Sam Bush, flatpicker Dan Crary,fiddler Hoot Hester, banjoists Buddy Spurlock and Courtney Johnson, progressive bluegrass guitarist and bandleader Tony Rice, and even Vince Gill, a bluegrass flatpicker and frontman who eventually went on to carve out a career in country & western music.