Album Notes

Big Fat Gap’s highly anticipated debut album features the reverse chronological recording history of a dynamic North Carolina-based bluegrass band with some of the top musical talent in America. The young musicians in Big Fat Gap have been performing across the United States for over 6 years and built a reputation for powerful live performances. Their debut record provides a brief history of their music through three recording sessions. The album begins with Big Fat Gap’s most recent spring of 2006 recording session with Jerry Brown at the Rubber Room, where Doc Watson, Jack Lawrence, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush have recorded. The next session showcases their studio work with Michael Holland (Tomorrow’s American Treasures) during the fall of 2004. The album finishes with Big Fat Gap’s first recording session with Michael Holland during the summer of 2004.

Big Fat Gap sound like hard-driving bluegrass in the tradition of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and Old and in the Way (Jerry Garcia and David Grisman). Members of Big Fat Gap have performed with Larry Keel & Natural Bridge, Chris Thile (Nickel Creek), Tony Trischka, John Cowan, Darol Anger, Jim Lauderdale, Jeff Autry, Wayne Benson, Craig Bignell, Luke Bulla, Pat Flynn, the Steep Canyon Rangers, the Biscuit Burners, Bill Evans (Miles Davis), and John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra). Big Fat Gap’s two banjo players, Andy Thorn and Ryan Cavanaugh, won the Rocky Grass and Merlefest banjo competitions; Andy Thorn (2003 Rocky Grass) and Ryan Cavanaugh, (2004 Rocky Grass and 2004 Merlefest). Big Fat Gap banjo player Ryan Cavanaugh is now featured as Béla Fleck’s replacement with Bill Evans and Soulgrass.

Big Fat Gap is named after one of the few remaining stands of old growth virgin forest in Joyce Kilmer Wilderness in Graham County near the North Carolina-Tennessee border. Big Fat Gap features Miles Andrews on guitar and lead vocals, Chris Heaney on mandolin, Andy Thorn (Larry Keel & Natural Brigde) on Banjo and baritone vocals, Ryan Cavanaugh (Bill Evans and SoulGrass) on banjo, Rick Hauchman on guitar and tenor vocals, Bobby Britt (Open Road) and John Garris (McGraw Gap) on fiddles, Jon Stickley (Biscuit Burners) on Guitar, Mandolin, and Tenor Vocals, and Robert Mitchener and Michael Holland alternating on upright bass and harmony vocals.

Here's a review of a recent live performance:

"The encountered yelping, hooting and hollering would have been absolutely ridiculous at any other public event but this was a "Big Fat Gap" concert. Such carrying on was not only entertaining but I insist that it was thoroughly necessary. During one amazing fiddle solo, a grown man yelled at the top of his lungs, "Get on it!" I took that to be a cheer of satisfaction and encouragement and thought nothing of it." --Warren Hynson, The Technician