When the Reedy River String Band takes the Pour House stage on May 23, the members will look like a traditional bluegrass trio. Sterling Waite plays fiddle, Rush Morgan plays acoustic guitar and Mark Dye plays upright bass.
Once they start playing, however, the traditionalism ends. The three veteran Upstate South Carolina musicians create a new version of the shopworn bluegrass genre, blending lightning-fast solos and vocal harmonies you’d expect with some distinctly Southern humor and a definite progressive edge.
Take “Up On Blocks,” the first song on the band’s self-titled debut EP, for example. The chugging acoustic tune flows along on Dye’s bouncy bass line and Waite’s mournful fiddle, setting up a sweet love story right up until Waite asks, “Can I put my car up on blocks in your yard?”
“The word we hear most often is ‘newgrass,” said Waite. “We stray pretty far from traditional bluegrass, though there are traditional elements in there.”
It’s a sound that’s taken them from tiny art gallery shows to big stages around the Upstate. Most notably, the band played a show last year on the main stage of Fall For Greenville, the city’s biggest festival. It also performed at the Albino Skunk Music Festival, one of the region’s most popular events. Oh, and the musicians just lined up their second European tour in two years.
Perhaps one of the reasons the Reedy River String Band is getting so much attention is it sounds fresher than the average bluegrass band. And that might be because neither Dye nor Waite were playing acoustic music before they got together.
“Rush Morgan had always played acoustic stuff,” Waite said. “But I didn’t have any acoustic projects going when we started the band, and Mark brought in funky stuff from a band he was in called The Work.”
As the musicians rehearsed and decided to focus on original material, the styles they’d been playing beforehand inevitably bled into their music.
“Certainly in the sections of the songs that really depart from the bluegrass sound, Mark brings that funky style to it, and I played a lot of electric guitar in rock ’n’ roll bands before this, and there’s definitely a rock element to the music.”
The band officially formed in 2022. Once the writing started to gel during rehearsals, Waite’s fondness for tongue-in-cheek humor surfaced in the lyrics.
“I’m a big John Prine fan, and I feel like he has this great mix of humor and heartfelt sadness in his music,” he said. “I don’t think we have as much heartfelt sadness, but I love his little wink and nod at you.”
Whatever the origins of the sound, the Reedy River String Band caught on quickly. Handfuls of fans went to dozens to hundreds within the band’s first year. Its EP has been streamed more than 20,000 times, impressive for a regional act.
“It definitely surpassed expectations, especially in the first year,” Waite said. “It was awesome to get those festival shows, and we’re about to go on our second European tour. It’s been awesome to get so much back from this experience.”
As to why fans are flocking to shows, Waite said he can only relay what he’s hearing from the audience.
“They like the departures from the more traditional bluegrass-ey elements,” he said. “And we often get remarks on our vocal harmonies. There are only three of us, so we’re trying to create as much sound as we can, and those harmonies are something we worked really hard at.”
But before the group takes those harmonies to Europe, the Reedy River String Band has a Pour House gig to take care of May 23.
“We love playing the Pour House, especially the deck,” Waite said. “That outdoor stage really has great crowd energy, and the venue seems to attract a crowd that really digs our sound.”
IF YOU GO: 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m., May 23, Pour House, 1977 Maybank Highway, Tickets are $10: charlestonpourhouse.com.
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