Mountain Highway performs at the Dawn Theater Sept. 5. David Bellet | Collegian
Mountain Highway, a bluegrass band from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, performed a selection of bluegrass covers Sept. 5 at the Dawn Theater.
The band’s bass player, Joe Glover, called their method of creating music “bluegrassification.”
“We like to take old songs that lots of people haven’t heard in a while or haven’t heard of, and put our own twist on them,” said the band’s mandolin picker and Joe Glover’s daughter, Emily Glover. “But we like to throw in people like Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles just to keep things interesting.”
The band also includes Joe Glover’s other daughter, Victoria Glover, on banjo and Davis Dykes, who plays guitar.
After playing a few traditional bluegrass songs like “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” Mountain Highway moved to some of their “bluegrassified” songs. Among these were The Eagles’ “Seven Bridges Road” and Dolly Parton’s “Those Memories of You.” Throughout these songs, Emily Glover and Dykes switched instruments often.
Professor of political economy Gary Wolfram and his wife Mary helped bring Mountain Highway to the Dawn Theater after meeting the band last year, according to Victoria Glover.
“I audited a course, and the course was Economics 101 by Dr. Gary Wolfram, so I’m kind of a fangirl,” Victoria Glover said. “We were performing in upstate New York last year at a bluegrass festival, and we were walking down to Niagara Falls. He had a Hillsdale College T-shirt on, and we’ve never seen one out in the wild. My dad said, ‘Oh my gosh, Victoria, he’s wearing a Hillsdale shirt,’ and I kind of did a double-take, but I recognized the mustache, and I was like, ‘That’s Gary Wolfram!’ So we met Mary, his wife, and she mentioned that she helps put on events here at the Dawn Theater.”
After attending the concert, Nathan Schlueter, professor of philosophy, said the event was inspirational and fun.
“Bluegrass is the original rock and roll, with all the upside and none of the down,” Schlueter said. “It was exciting to see so much young talent, and so many young kids enjoying it. I hope it inspires more people, as Andrew Lytle recommended, to throw out their electronic devices and ‘take down the fiddle from the wall.’”
Emily Glover said she liked playing at the Dawn Theater.
“This crowd is awesome,” Emily Glover said. “We enjoyed it.”
Send tips to the City News team: collegiancitynews@gmail.com
