High Fidelity, nominated for New Artist of the Year in the forthcoming IBMA awards, shares an inspiring new music video this week.
His Charming Love appears on the band’s Rebel Records release, Banjo Player’s Blues.
Jeremy considered recording the song for years, and now with High Fidelity, finds himself with band-mates who are all familiar with traditional church music; several who even read shape notes. Occasionally, the group performs a few songs in theirs shows in the Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass style with guitar, much like the original Chuck Wagon Gang. Since incorporating that into their shows, High Fidelity has had many requests to record a Chuck Wagon Gang song, but Stephens was a member of the CWG for 6 years and didn’t want to do anything that would take away from the group that is still very active today.
I’m a fan of early male quartet music from the 1920’s and 30’s, and this song comes from that tradition. It was written by O. A. Parris for the James D. Vaughan publishing company in 1928, and recorded the same year on Victor Records by the Vaughan Quartet. I have the 78 of this in my collection, and I fell in love with this side the very first time I heard it.
Rather than recording a song in our repertoire, I felt this was a good opportunity to do His Charming Love. It gives most of the parts a feature, has an uplifting message, and, to set us apart from the CWG, we used two open-chorded guitars with interludes rather than just one guitar playing closed chord rhythm with no instrumental break – Jeremy Stephens.
The result clearly shows the band’s love for tradition and harmony in one truly uplifting song, not to mention their magnificent voices and superb harmony singing. This is one great band.
About High Fidelity:
Many folks remember the great bluegrass records from the 1950s and ‘60s. The power and soul of that music has won the hearts of people across the globe. Few bands have come along in recent years that directly draw their influence from that classic era of the music’s history. High Fidelity is a rising group whose love and devotion to that music is unsurpassed.
The name alone says it all: High Fidelity. How many record albums have you seen from the ‘50s and ‘60s that bear those words? Herein lies the heart of what this group of young performers is all about. Formed in early 2014, the group received its first achievement with a first place win in the International Band Championship at the 40th Annual Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America (SPBGMA) Awards in February of 2014. In 2019, they were nominated for International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) New Artist of the Year.
The band consists of five outstanding musicians and singers who are steeped in the sounds of tradition.
Jeremy Stephens, guitarist and lead vocalist for the group, has worked for the world famous gospel group The Chuck Wagon Gang, on the television show Ray Stevens’ Nashville, and most recently with Jesse McReynolds & the Virginia Boys.
Corrina Rose Logston, fiddler and harmony vocalist, has worked with a who’s who of today’s traditional-based bluegrass performers, most notably Jesse McReynolds & the Virginia Boys and Jim Lauderdale.
Kurt Stephenson handles banjo duties and harmony vocals. He is the 2010 National Bluegrass Banjo Champion at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, and is a staple performer of the greater west Tennessee area.
Vickie Vaughn, who plays upright bass and contributes vocals, has worked in recent years with Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs.
Multi-instrumentalist and harmony vocalist Daniel Amick, has won numerous instrumental contests across the southeast and is a recipient of IBMA’s 2019 Instrumentalist of the Year Momentum Award.
High Fidelity draws much of their inspiration from bands like Don Reno & Red Smiley, The Stanley Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Jim & Jesse, and a host of lesser known regional artists from the same era. Many have described them as the new Johnson Mountain Boys, interpreting classic era bluegrass through the fresh, young perspective of today’s generation. Maybe it is this quality that makes High Fidelity so warmly received and widely loved by every audience they perform for, including grandparents and the grandchildren.
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