Cityfolk is proud to present the 2013 bluegrass concert Bluegrass Tymes II, sponsored by the Jack W and Sally D Eichelberger Foundation and featuring Russell Morre & IIIrd Tyme Out with special guest Sons of Bluegrass at the Masonic Center on Friday, May 10 at the Dayton Masonic Center.

Now celebrating its 22nd year as a band, Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out is one of the most successful and celebrated bluegrass ensembles of the last quarter century. The band was formed in 1991, when singer/guitarist Russell Moore, bass player Ray Deaton and fiddler Mike Hartgrove left Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver to make their own mark on modern bluegrass. IIIrd Tyme Out (the name is a reference to the fact that this was the third full-time band for each of the three principals) made an impressive debut, recording three acclaimed and influential albums in just four years.

Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out—which includes Russell Moore (guitar, lead vocals), Steve Dilling (banjo, vocals), Wayne Benson (mandolin, vocals), Justen Haynes (fiddle) and Edgar Loudermilk (bass)—has won numerous awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association, including Vocal Group of the Year seven consecutive years; Russell Moore has been named Male Vocalist of the Year five times, more than any other singer.

The band made its recording debut in 1991 with IIIrd Tyme Out on Rebel and now has an extensive discography that includes such favorites as Living on the Other Side, Letter to Home, John and Mary, Singing on Streets of Gold and Live at the MAC. The band’s latest album for Rural Rhythm Records is Prime Tyme, which includes the hit “Pretty Little Girl from Galax.” Timeless Hits from the Past…Bluegrassed, the first fruit of the band’s new marketing partnership with Cracker Barrel restaurants, was released in January. The album includes such vintage country hits as “Mama Tried” and “Farewell Party,” as well as re-makes of the band’s hits “John and Mary” and “Only You.”

Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out is back on top of the bluegrass world—for the second time, no less—after a few years early in the last decade where it seemed the band’s future might be in doubt. “All the awards, all the recognition, those things are just by-products of doing what we love to do,” says Russell Moore, “and of having everybody pulling in the same direction. But when you know that somebody out there is getting something from your music, well, that’s the thing about music that got me into it, just the love of the music, and the way it made me feel. It always has been therapeutic, and it still is. You can’t ask for more than that.”

Sons of Bluegrass
Mentored by award-winning guitarist Tim Stafford of Blue Highway, the Sons of Bluegrass consists of five students in the bluegrass music program at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City: Chris Armstrong (bass, vocals), Cameron Owens (mandolin, vocals), Meade Richter (fiddle), Lee Franklin (guitar, vocals) and Dan Troyer (banjo, vocals). The fast-rising young quintet, which has received an Arts Build Communities grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission and won the Championship Bluegrass Band award at the Fiddler’s Grove Festival in North Carolina, released its first recording last fall, The Sons of Bluegrass, a six-song EP that contains four band originals.

Cityfolk also receives funding from Culture Works, Ohio Arts Council and the Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District.