Let’s start with the numbers – 17 years, 13 albums, 140 studio recorded songs, 13 international music awards – and they’re from nearby Haywood County. Now that we’ve got your attention, it’s probably obvious that we’re talking about local and international bluegrass favorite, Balsam Range.
Theirs was a journey – a continuing one – that saw individual local stars unite into an alliance that swept the radio and carried the beacon of North Carolina mountain music to other continents. Marc Pruett, Tim Surrett, Buddy Melton, Darren Nicholson, and Caleb Smith ran a ten-year streak of highly acclaimed shows in Stecoah’s An Appalachian Evening series while their fame in the music world far beyond the Stecoah Valley skyrocketed.
“It was kind of scary,” Tim Surrett recalls after being asked about their first year playing Stecoah in 2008. “It took a while to get used to that kind of reaction. When you use ear monitors like we always have and the crowd about blows them out of your head through the microphones, that is a good feeling. I don’t know how many seats are in SVC, maybe about 300, but it’s plenty loud enough, buddy, when they get cranked up.”
“To stand on that stage at Stecoah, it’s almost as if you can feel the history. I can remember the first time I played there. I thought, boy, this is the real thing right here. This is like stepping back 50 years to how country music used to be presented.” (see Storytime With Marc p 6) Marc Pruett continued with his perspective. “From the standpoint of Balsam Range, we’ve really enjoyed getting to be part of that.”
The Bucket List
The members of Balsam Range have certainly played larger stages. In no particular order, their past ventures have included the groups Jubal Foster, Whitewater Bluegrass Company, Harvest, Hazel Creek, Alecia Nugent, The Kingsmen, The Isaacs, The Whites, The Southern Lawmen, and Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder. In 2007, they let loose their first record, Marching Home. Soon after, sitting in a now-defunct Canton steakhouse, a bucket list of goals came together.
“Six or seven years later all of that had just about come true – you know, things like Merlefest,” says Surrett. “We never thought in a million years we’d get nominated for stuff like IBMA awards. I remember us laughing about it one time, ‘Well, maybe this album will get nominated’ but that was as far as we were planning. We just wanted to make good music and see where it went. It went way further than we could imagine.”
Within a couple years, the Last Train to Kitty Hawk album was met with number ones on the charts, and the name Balsam Range was circulating nationally. Members all had day jobs and were playing more than five nights a week, traveling around in a Toyota Tundra or a rental van, and crossing the Caney Fork River plenty. “We were just dumbfounded that people really seemed to enjoy it at a level that we didn’t expect.” Marc laughed, “Like Tim says, ‘It just got out of the banks.’” Tim continued, “I tell people all the time. Nobody’s more surprised by our success than we are.”
A pivotal moment came in 2011 with the third album, Trains I Missed. Four years into this effort, the group was nominated by the International Bluegrass Music Association for Song of the Year. They were invited to perform the title single at the awards show in the Ryman Auditorium. Balsam Range walked off the stage with their first of many IBMA Awards to the great applause of the audience. Despite the success, Marc joked, “We’ve not had to hire security.” They did upgrade to a transit van, though.
This video of Trains I Missed was recorded at the Art of Sound festival a month after it won Song of the Year.
As this rapid rise was transpiring for Balsam Range, things were picking up for Stecoah as well. The second administration had come into leadership, bringing new energy and ideas to add to the original heart of the Center’s vision. The consistent yearly trifecta of the Kruger Brothers, the Jeff Little Trio, and Balsam Range in the lineup was paying off in audience return. The little schoolhouse that had closed in uncertainty fifteen years prior sold out of tickets for the first time. (see Stewardship & Sellout Shows p 27) Additional veteran star power was added to the series as well with shows like Doc Watson, Lonesome River Band, and Special Consensus.
As more people heard Balsam Range, more people liked them – and more venues called them. “We wanted to play local as much as possible, but we also wanted to play some of those bucket list festivals like Grey Fox, Telluride, and Grass Valley in California.” recalled Tim. “Yeah, we were playing a lot of bluegrass festivals at that time in our career. I think we were doing 100 or more dates a year,” Marc shared. “The thing about it is, if you’re talking about going to Red Wing or Kansas City or New York, to do one day it takes three days. It takes a day to get there, a day to do the date and a day to come back.”
Many of the bluegrass fans at the festivals Balsam Range played were organically voting IBMA members. Marc acknowledged that was manifesting itself more and more. “They’re going to see you at festivals. If you do a good job there, you’ve got a chance to win some of those awards.”
With all the positive buzz and satisfied concertgoers, the unchecked bucket list items were shrinking. In 2012, the fourth album, Papertown, won IBMA Album of the Year. In 2013, they branched out and did an
album collaboration with John Driskoll Hopkins of the Zac Brown Band named Daylight, as well as a limited run album on their own, Live at the Altamont. Sheer quality continued to develop as the shows kept coming.
“What we do looks like a big party from the outside, but it’s an intense professional obligation when you talk about the equipment, time, and money involved. Presenting a quality product every time – I think that has something to do with how popular the band’s been,” Marc explained. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had people say, ‘man that sound was so great.’ That doesn’t come easy – it takes an effort to make that happen.”
Awards Sweep
Different awards have a different amount of gravity – you have to prove commitment, musicianship, full-time effort, and the ability to entertain to even be considered for the higher awards in IBMA. In 2014, Buddy Melton won Male Vocalist of the Year, having been nominated among heavy hitters Del McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Frank Solivan, and Dan Tyminski. Later in the evening, he ascended the stairs again with the rest of the band to receive the Vocal Group of the Year. Entertainer of the Year is kept till the very end of the ceremony – other than a Distinguished Achievement Award or a Grammy, it’s the highest honor you can receive in the industry.
“We had just gotten through playing that night on the show. Caleb and I were actually standing backstage talking to Del [McCoury]. He was telling us this funny story about a guitar he was trying to buy and Jack Cook swooped in and bought it out from under him,” Tim laughed. “We heard the crowd go nuts and Del said, ‘Boys, they just called your name,’” said Tim with a spot-on Del impression. “We thought he was kidding. We kind of peeked around the curtain and saw the rest of the guys coming. Lee Ann Womack had called our name. We’re like – you got to be kidding!”
In seven short years, Balsam Range had gone from performing for the experience of it, to winning the most prestigious award in bluegrass – other nominees that year were Blue Highway, Dailey & Vincent, The Gibson Brothers, and The Del McCoury Band. They had tapped the ceiling, (and would again), but they were back at Stecoah faithfully the next summer, telling jokes and eating BBQ and homemade cake. (see Stecoah Voices p 15)
“It was fun to carry a little bit of that – whatever it was – back to Stecoah, the Colonial Theater in Canton, and the Canton Labor Day Celebration,” Tim confided. “I wanted folks to know that it wasn’t just the five of us – it was our hometown; it was Western North Carolina; it was the Smoky Mountains. It was every bit of who and what we were at that time.” Marc, ever the storyteller, piped in, “We had an old friend in Louisville,
Kentucky – Bill Sullivan. He was absolutely a great man, had a great musical instrument and instrument parts business. Bill would say, ‘Oh, we’re all just bluegrass friends.’ I would say that.”
Somebody must have been adding to the bucket list because the achievements just keep coming – In 2015 they won IBMA Vocal Group of the Year, Tim Surrett won Bass Player of the Year, and Song of the Year with Moon Over Memphis. In 2016, they started their own festival, the Art of Music Festival, and in 2017 won IBMA Album of the Year with Mountain VooDoo. In 2018, Tim won IBMA Bass Player of the Year and the group won Entertainer of the Year – and that was on top of recording a full album with an orchestra. And they’re not finished – in 2021 Richest Man won Song of the Year.
Balsam Range at Stecoah After Six Year Pause
Balsam Range has not been in the An Appalachian Evening lineup since 2017, but the list above tells you a bit about the amount of time invested in chasing dreams. They took mountain music to the far corners of Europe and to Canada multiple times. These days, they’re seeing a lot of performing arts centers, but that doesn’t mean they’ve let their guard down. “You sacrifice some notoriety for that, but they’re a lot of fun,” commented Tim. “That’s kind of been a focus of ours the last four or five years. We play music in PACs all over the country where, you know, last month might have been a ballet. They may not know what we do so we have to hit them between the eyes like we’ve never seen them – because we probably haven’t.”
Balsam Range on the Grand Old Stage
Photographers Credit: Charles Snodgrass
“That’s right,” said Marc. “You never really can rest on laurels. If we go somewhere to play tonight we have to sell it again – just like it was the first night. Play like your hair’s on fire, play like you mean it, put heart into it, because people hear what’s happening then. They don’t necessarily hear your accomplishments from the past.”
Having experienced all of the highs and lows of seventeen years in a band, what advice would the two give the 2008 versions of themselves?
For Tim it was, “Just work hard, make good music, and be honest with it. Nothing will kill a crowd like a fake personality on stage. Don’t be afraid to get a job either. If you go full-time before the time is right, it’s a hard road to hoe. Music needs to be your hobby until it just refuses to be anymore.”
Marc was a bit of a philosopher. “Leonardo da Vinci said that exposure to a discipline can create interest; interest can lead to involvement; involvement can lead to knowledge; and knowledge of a discipline can lead to love. Where your love ends is where your progress will end. If you think about it in those terms you can determine just how much you love something – it’ll tell you how far you’re going to go – but people have got to love it and have reasonable expectations, I would say.”
After a six year pause, Stecoah and Balsam Range team up once again this summer for what will no doubt be one of the most anticipated shows of the 2024 season. In six years’ time, they’ve released six new projects – multiple that have debuted at number one on Billboard – and have won more IBMA awards. Following Darren Nicholson pursuing his solo career (see Out Into The Unknown p 30), they’ve recruited a new member. Mandolinist and vocalist Alan Bibey is no small name in bluegrass, with a history in groups such as IIIrd Tyme Out, Lou Reid & Carolina, BlueRidge, and Grasstowne.
“I think it’s going to be like seeing old friends again, like going to a high school reunion, not a wedding,” Tim laughed warmly. “Comfortable and very nice. There’s nowhere on God’s earth any prettier than Graham County. I look forward to the drive out there. You know what you’re gonna get – the people are great. It was just always a very free-spirited place to play.”
Marc summed up his expectation with what sounded like a smile, “Son, we are going to come out there with brand new strings and a tight thumb pick – lips first!”
Balsam Range will play the Stecoah stage once again this year for the 25th Anniversary of An Appalachian Evening concert series on Saturday, August 31st. Stecoah recently published a low ticket warning so it seems another sell out is inevitable. Get yours here now.
