Grammy award-winning bluegrass band The SteelDrivers will perform in Odessa for the first time ever this week.
The concert, which is a part of the group’s current national tour, will take place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Ector Theatre.
The group’s current members include fiddler Tammy Rodgers, bassist Mike Fleming, guitarist/vocalist Matt Dame, mandolinist Brent Truitt and banjoist Richard Bailey.
“We are super excited,” Rodgers said. “We never played in Odessa before so this is going to be new. … I think the closest we’ve been to Odessa is when we’ve been in Lubbock a few times. This will be fun.”
The SteelDrivers began their tour two weeks ago with shows in North Carolina and South Carolina.
“We just kicked off last week with our tour in the Carolinas and we had two sell out shows, two totally different types of shows,” Rodgers said. “The Friday night was like a standing, rock club. There was a lot of energy. There were a lot of people crammed into small spaces. It was super fun. Then Saturday night, it was a beautiful theater in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was a very intimate, listening room so it was great. Both experiences were wonderful. We’re excited to see what Odessa has to offer.”
The band is currently working on several new albums, some of which are tributes.
“We’re trying to make up for lost time,” Rodgers said. “This past winter, we’ve worked on a few tracks that are going to be on two different tribute albums so that’s exciting.”
One of the tribute albums is to the late folk singer Dave Olney who passed away in January 2020.
“He was a very well-loved and respected songwriter here in the Nashville community,” Rodgers said. “He’s well known in the Americana world, nationally and internationally. We did a track for that.”
The SteelDrivers aren’t exactly known for Christian music but they just finished a track that’s going to come out on a tribute album for Bill and Gloria Gaither.
“That’s really a big departure for us but we’re super excited to be asked to be a part of that,” Rodgers said. “I think it turned out pretty well.”
Despite doing a more gospel-styled song, Rodgers said it was done in the way that their fans will recognize.
“Well, we did the song, obviously, SteelDriver style,” Rodgers said. “We didn’t supplement with any drums or electric instruments or anything so it’ll totally sound like a SteelDrivers track when you hear it. But we’re not known for our gospel songs. So thematically, it was a little bit of a departure but I say that and I kind of laugh and joke about it but in reality, the most requested song has been ‘where rainbows never die’ which, arguably is a Christian song. It just doesn’t have the words ‘heaven’ or ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ in it. But the meaning behind it is very spiritual and very much a gospel thing. I think our fans will embrace it.”
The SteelDrivers hail from Nashville, Tenn. where they got their start in 2005.
The SteelDrivers have blended together country, soul, blues and other contemporary influences to give the group a unique sound, one that the band’s website has described as “bluegrass soul.”
The group has been nominated for four Grammys, the Americana Music Association’s New Artists of the Year and was IBMA’s 2009 Emerging Artist of the Year.
In 2015, the band won a Grammy for “The Muscle Shoals Recordings” in the category of Best Bluegrass Recording.
That award was even more surprising for Rodgers who thought bluegrass great Ralph Stanley was going to win it that year.
“Obviously, winning a Grammy was incredible,” Rodgers said. “Being out in LA was awesome and I didn’t think we’d win that year. Ralph Stanley was in the category and it was the last record he’d ever made so I figured he was a shoe-in.”
It’s not every year that The SteelDrivers release a new record and their last one had some unfortunate timing.
That album, titled “Bad For You” was released in February, 2020 — right before the pandemic shut everything down, including the band’s highly-anticipated tour that year.
“That was a real heartbreaker for us,” Rodgers said. “It had been five years between records. As you can tell, we don’t make records very fast. We don’t do a new record every year. We don’t even do a record every other year. So we put a lot of time and energy into that record and the recording and everything building up to it and the tour. That was going to be the biggest year that we ever had. And then, we all know a worldwide pandemic shut the world down and it was devastating.”
In certain ways, the band has made up for lost time since then.
“Of course, all the tour dates that were lost or canceled, we made up,” Rodgers said. “We were able to start touring again in the fall of 2021. I think last year, we played the last remaining dates that had been shuffled around four or five times. … But we missed the whole cycle. The whole Grammy cycle, the whole IBMA cycle, the whole Americana awards cycle and all that is important.”
Over the years, different members of the band have come and left including Chris Stapleton, Gary Nichols and Mike Henderson.
With each change, the songwriting duties moved to someone else.
For Rodgers, “Bad For You” was the first record where she had co-written every song.
“That was a big deal to me,” Rodgers said. “The first two records were when Henderson and Stapleton were in the band so all those songs were from their catalog. They had been writing for four or five years before the band even got together. So that was all their songs. And then, when Chris and Mike left the band, the songwriting fell to me and Nichols. The next two albums, ‘Hammer Down’ and ‘Muscle Shoals,’ we kind of shared the co-writing duties. That worked out great. And then when Gary left the band, it fell to me and I dug in and started writing. I was really happy and pleased that the guys loved the song and that we didn’t have to look outside the band. That’s always been our deal to not take any outside songs so it was pretty cool.”
Even with all the changes over the years, the band has remained a major part of the bluegrass scene.
“I think we’ve been very fortunate,” Rodgers said. “We’ve found incredible singers that not only could sing the back catalog, the stuff from older records but also bring new energy and new inspiration into the band. I think having the consistency of the four of us because me, Richard and Mike are the original members but Mike has been in the band for 11 years now so he’s almost an original. That’s a real strong consistent sound as well.”
After Odessa, the band will remain in the Lone Star State with shows in Buda on Feb. 18 and Houston the following day.
“We’re excited to come out that way,” Rodgers said. “We always love to play in Texas. … I’m looking forward to eating as much Tex-Mex and barbecue as possible. I grew up in Texas so I know what the food scene is like. It’s always a treat to get to come out that way.”
If you go
- What: The SteelDrivers.
- When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17.
- Where: Ector Theatre.
- Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/ue6py24
