Boy Named Banjo at City Winery

Boy Named Banjo began in a classroom of a preparatory day school for boys in Nashville, Tennessee. William Reames, Willard Logan, and Barton Davies started playing bluegrass together in 2011 and recorded an album later that year in a school closet. The trio performed locally, highlighted by a 2013 performance between periods at a Predators game. Boy Named Banjo released a sophomore album, Long Story Short (2014), and an EP, Lost on Main (2015), and won a statewide contest that landed the band on the Bonnaroo stage in 2015. The group presently consists of vocalist/banjo player Davies, vocalist/guitarist/harmonica player Reames, vocalist/guitarist/mandolin player Logan, drummer Sam McCullough, and bassist Ford Garrard.

At City Winery tonight, Boy Named Banjo's music could no longer be called bluegrass in the honest sense of the word. Rather, the band expanded beyond the genre to the more encompassing Americana tag. Boy Named Banjo stayed true to its acoustic-styled origins, but adapted its roots music to a palate that was closer to Eagles radio-friendly pop than it was to Snuffy Jenkins' mountain music. Still, the music was stripped down enough to feel more like a back porch hootenanny than an arena concert. Boy Named Banjo's crafty banjo/mandolin/harmonica leads provided an alternative to common modern country-rock, however, and the crisp, multiple-part harmonies hint at a bigger future for these young men.

Visit Boy Named Banjo at www.boynamedbanjo.com.