Those who know the background on Dierks Bentley know that bluegrass is one of his great musical loves. In fact, he has often said he might never have stuck with music had he not discovered the Nashville bluegrass scene of the mid-1990s that was based around a club called the Station Inn.
But it was a much more recent experience that propelled Bentley into having his next CD, “Up on the Ridge,” be a bluegrass-inspired acoustic music album.
Last summer, Bentley opened for Brad Paisley on his outdoor amphitheater tour. While playing to crowds of upwards of 20,000 fans a night might have been good for Bentley’s career, on a musical level, it was in a soul-sapping stretch of time.
o What: Dierks Bentley and the Travelin McCourys in concert.
o When: 8 p.m. April 21.
o Where: Wonder Ballroom, 128 N.E. Russell St., Portland.
o Cost: $30-$35, adults 21 and older. Tickets through -Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
o What: Dierks Bentley and the Travelin McCourys in concert.
o When: 8 p.m. April 21.
o Where: Wonder Ballroom, 128 N.E. Russell St., Portland.
o Cost: $30-$35, adults 21 and older. Tickets through -Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
o Information: 503-284-8686 or http://www.wonderballroom.com/.
o Information: 503-284-8686 or http://www.wonderballroom.com/.
“We were playing for about 45 minutes, and we weren’t really allotted time for a sound check,” Bentley said in an early April phone interview. “It was really just kind of frustrating musically for us, to kind of say the least. I just kind of sat there all year long going, ‘I need to make music. I need to make great music that I’m proud of. I need to get away from this type of situation.’”
Some folks are there to party and they don’t really care about sound checking, he said.
So even as the summer tour was winding down, Bentley was already thinking it was time for him to make the bluegrass record he’d always thought of doing.
At first, Bentley envisioned the bluegrass record as a side project, and he’d then buckle down to make his next mainstream country CD.
But then he hooked up with producer Jon Randall Stewart to begin planning for the record, and it started becoming far more than that.
In the end, “Up on the Ridge” grew both in musical scope and into something that is much more like a musical event. Bentley ended up collaborating with a host of top names from bluegrass and country, including Del McCoury, Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers, Kris Kristofferson, Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien, Miranda Lambert and Jamey Johnson.
The CD came to encompass not only five songs co-written by Bentley, but bluegrass-centric covers of songs by U2 and Bob Dylan.
“As soon as I started thinking about doing (the U2 song) ‘Pride’ with Del McCoury and the Punch Brothers, I was like OK, we’re not making a traditional bluegrass record,” Bentley said. “This isn’t going to be side project. It’s going to be a career record for me.”
“Up on the Ridge” won’t be in stores until June 8, but because Bentley was already booked to do his usual country shows this summer, the “Up on the Ridge” tour runs from April 21 through May 22, well before the CD is released.
But frankly, Bentley is too excited about this tour, in which he will be backed by his long-time friends from Del McCoury’s band, the Travelin’ McCourys (plus a drummer and steel guitar/banjo/fiddle player), to worry about the disconnect in the tour’s timing with the CD.
“We’re calling this a pre-release tour,” he said. “I’m going to have so much fun on this tour, I’ll be grinning from ear to ear because I just can’t believe I get the chance to hang out with my best friends and play, and I get to be the Del of the Del McCoury Band, which are impossible shoes to fill. But hell, I’m going to stand up out there and try to do it.”
Bentley’s decision to make “Up on the Ridge” now may not be the smartest from a career standpoint.
After seeing his popularity gradually build over the course of his first three CDs — a period that produced the chart-topping hits “What Was I Thinkin’,” “Settle for a Slowdown,” “Every Mile a Memory” and “Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go),” Bentley’s 2009 CD, “Feel That Fire,” amped up his career further.
That CD spawned two No. 1 country hits (“Sideways” and “Feel That Fire”) and another tune, “I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes,” that peaked at No. 2 on “Billboard” magazine’s country singles chart in January.
This latest success placed Bentley on the verge of becoming a top tier country artist. But Bentley said if Capitol Records would have preferred another mainstream country CD before his venture into bluegrass-hybrid music, the label is now embracing the “Up on the Ridge” project.
“They had to start hearing the music,” Bentley said. “Then they started getting it, and the collaborations, and what this record was going to be. Then they jumped behind it 100 percent. I think they’re excited to work something different.”
