- Guess which dude didn't read the e-mail about not shaving
The Nashville-based bluegrass band Cadillac Sky recorded its latest, and most electric, album, Letters in the Deep, at the Akron home studio of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach over four days last September. “The spirit moved and we caught the wave,” says Bryan Simpson, the group’s singer and mandolin player. “We went into record 10 songs, and we just kept enjoying the musical experience so much that everyone just kept throwing new songs into the bath.” Mixing guitars, mandolin, banjo, drums, and piano to a blend of country, folk, Americana, and rock, the five-piece band ended up recording 17 songs of raucous bluegrass fusion that’s much different from their first two, mostly acoustic, albums, 2007’s Blind Man Walking and 2008’s Gravity’s Our Enemy. “There will be a lot of people shaken from the trees when it comes to fans of the last album compared to this one,” says Simpson. “But we felt we needed to give each song what it needed. And if that meant the front of the song needed a banjo, mandolin and fiddle, and the end of the song needed an electric guitar and someone going crazy like a monkey on the drums, then we did it.” Cadillac Sky evoke the Band, the Avett Brothers, and everything in between on Letters in the Deep. The album has a living spirit — pretty much what you can expect to hear onstage. Says Simpson: “Our audiences have been coming to shows saying, ‘We love you so much better live than on the record. We want to hear the same energy and inspiration on an album.’” This one’s for them. Cadillac Sky, with JP & the Chatfield Boys, play the Beachland Ballroom at 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $15. —Keith Gribbins
Review the show at clevescene.com/concertscene
