Donna the Buffalo - "Silverlined" - Now Available (released July 8, 2008)
Donna the Buffalo is twenty years young this year and as energized as ever. Their 7th record, SILVERLINED, which will be released on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 on Sugar Hill Records, builds on Donna the Buffalo's signature sound -- a bedrock of traditional mountain music infused with elements of Cajun, rock, folk, reggae and country. Throughout SILVERLINED, these undulating rhythms carry the original lyrics, and alternating vocals, of founding members Tara Nevins and Jeb Puryear along a powerful, mesmerizing current.
Donna the Buffalo represents one of most respected 'brands' in the world of touring roots acts. The band has put countless miles on their vintage biodiesel bus playing the country's most prestigious festivals and clubs. Their fervent fan base, nicknamed The Herd, follows the band with zeal and has created a unique and supportive community online and at DTB shows across the nation. As an extension of this community and the band's own dedication to live roots music, Donna the Buffalo started its own annual event -- The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance -- in upstate NY which draws more than 15,000 people every year.
Rounding out DTB with Nevins (vocals, guitar, fiddle, accordion) and Puryear (vocals, guitar) are Tom Gilbert, drums (eleven years with DTB), David McCracken, keyboards, and Jay Sanders, bass (he recently replaced Bill Reynolds who's off with Band of Horses). SILVERLINED also includes the talents of such well-known guests as Béla Fleck, Claire Lynch, David Hidalgo and Amy Helm.
Sugar Hill History
In the late sixties, Barry Poss came to the United States from Canada with a fellowship and a student visa to obtain a doctorate’s degree of sociology from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Coming
within one chapter of completing his dissertation, Poss answered a classified ad for a graphic artist placed by a small Virginia-based record label, County Records. County hired him, and Poss gave up teaching to
follow his main passion, music, at a record label he admired.
Three years later, in 1978, Barry Poss launched Sugar Hill Records (named after a song Poss heard in Western North Carolina). Poss wanted a strong label identity with a “signature sound,” that stood for great
artists and quality production, similar to what Sam Phillips had done with Sun Records. While traveling around rural areas in the South discovered young musicians whos sound was influenced as much by
old-time and bluegrass music as they were rock, country and other newer forms of music. This interesting combination of, and tension between, roots and contemporary music gave further impetus for Poss to
start Sugar Hill Records. Ricky Skaggs was the perfect personification of this tension and became the first artist Poss targeted to help launch the new record label. Sugar Hill’s first album was by a band called
Boone Creek and it featured Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Douglas, two artists Poss credits as being instrumental in shaping the “Sugar Hill sound.” It also helped Sugar Hill cement its burgeoning legend, a legend
that would, decades later, elicit praise: “Sugar Hill is one of twenty-one labels that changed the world … reinventing country music” —PULSE!
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