Murphy Henry

Hey, hey, hey! Our son Christopher is featured in the December issue of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine! The article talks about his band, Hardcore Grass (recently returned from a month-long tour in Australia, or Oz, as they seem to refer to it on Facebook) and also focuses quite a bit on Chris's songwriting. As some of you know, Chris wrote the song "Walking West To Memphis" which was recorded by the Gibson Brothers and was nominated for IBMA Song Of The Year in 2011. 

Chris has been writing and recording songs and tunes pretty much all his life. "Lucky Charms Waltz" was a real early one, as you can tell from the cereal-inspired title! I loved his instrumental "Leatherjackets" so much that I included the original 1994 version and his updated and orchestrated 2002 version on my M and M Blues CD.

Chris has been playing music professionally for over twenty years now, having started with us on mandolin and then guitar when he was about 12. Many of you have literally watched him grow up on our DVDs. Over the years Chris has played as a side musician with some wonderful musicians like Peter Rowan, Shawn Camp, Dave Peterson, Audie Blaylock, and of course Dalton Brill and the Wildcats which included fellow Wildcats David McLaughlin and Marshall Wilborn. And some of you may remember that for a few brief shining moments he and Casey had their own band, Casey and Chris and the Two-Stringers. Alas! Keeping a band together is tough, tough, tough and making money when starting a band is even tough, tough, tougher.

But now Chris is shouldering the load by himself and leading Hardcore Grass. As the name indicates, the group---powered by Chris's driving mandolin playing, his strong lead vocals, his original songs, and his throw-back, old-time, folksy emceeing---plays with a "white-knuckle, bite the cap off the Coke bottle grit." (I pulled that right from the article because I liked the quote so much. Not sure where author Bill Conger got it.) A few of you got to see Chris and the band do a late-night showcase at IBMA this year. WOW! Intense! (And let me give a shout-out to his fiddle player Corrina Logston---she is dynamite! I love her fiddling!)

I could go on and on because I'm his momma and that's what mommas do. But I will close by encouraging you to check out his music, which I'm sure is all over YouTube.

If you want to contact Christopher to buy CDs or take a Skype lesson (he's offering a Holiday discount!) here's how: Phone: 615-495-6835. Email: cbhenry@visuallink.com. Website: christopherhenry.net. Or Facebook: However you do stuff like that. He's just Chris Henry as far as I know. He does Facebook a lot (can we really use that as a verb now???), so that's a pretty good way to find him!

And if you want to subscribe to Bluegrass Unlimited (which I highly recommend), just call 800-258-4727. Tell them Murphy sent you!