Buy The Goat Rodeo Sessions

October 25, 2011 By wesleydonehue

Day 82 – From my frequent posts about the Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show, you know I love bluegrass music. What you don’t know is that I’m also in love with the cello. When I’m writing, I often listen to Yo Yo Ma and the Turtle Island String Quartet.

I also love the energy and inspiration instrumental groups such as Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky provide. Just pay attention to the Spotify Facebook stream, and you’ll see those two groups dominating my 9-5 workday.

So what happens when you bring the world’s best bluegrass and classical musicians together for an instrumental album?

You get one of the best recordings made in years in the form of “The Goat Rodeo Sessions.”

This hodgepodge group is about as unique as the name would suggest. It consists of Yo-Yo Ma on cello, bassist Edgar Meyer, bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan, and Chris Thile on mandolin.

That’s right. Yo-Yo Ma busting out bluegrass. How can that not be awesome?!?!

This string quartet weaves together melodies that sound part folk, part bluegrass, and overall unique. Meyer, Thile, and Duncan are the ones are credited with creating such spectacular compositions that one has a hard time pegging them with a description.

I mean, it is really almost hard to describe the sound. The way to describe them would be for you to actually listen to this live recording of “Here and Heaven”.