Album Notes

The High 48s play original bluegrass in the traditional style, with a deep, driving groove and three-part harmonies sung around a single microphone. But unlike many third generation bands playing traditional bluegrass, the High 48s aren’t interested in playing the next best version of Little Maggie.
They want to write the next Little Maggie. The 48s turned to traditional bluegrass relatively late in their musical lives, after years spent working with rock, alternative country and progressive acoustic artists.
Coming from other genres, where bands writing their own material was the norm, it didn’t take long for the 48s to start thinking about writing original bluegrass. Which isn’t to say it was an easy thing to do at first. According to Derek Johnson, one of the band’s principal songwriters, making the transition from rock and roll to bluegrass took some doing: “With rock and roll bands it was about doing something ‘different.’Writing bluegrass was a challenge at first to fit into a mold.”But shortly after the 48s started writing their first bluegrass songs, Johnson says “it just started to click.”
And click it did. The High 48s new CD, Who Needs Love?, promises to take the band to the next level in the regional and even the national bluegrass scene, with its combination of classic-sounding originals and original-sounding classics.