After years of ascending the bluegrass charts with Grammy-winning band Steep Canyon Rangers, ace banjo picker Graham Sharp has discovered a brand new ardour for climbing crags within the Blue Ridge.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/h2>\n
It\u2019s an early fall day, and Graham Sharp\u2014founding member of the Grammy-winning bluegrass outfit Steep Canyon Rangers\u2014is hanging off a cliff, clinging to a granite face on Rumbling Bald Mountain in North Carolina\u2019s Chimney Rock State Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 75 ft, the game route\u2014colloquially generally known as Bear Cub\u2014is comparatively brief. But it\u2019s stout, and simply tough sufficient that Sharp\u2019s coronary heart kilos just a little sooner and his imaginative and prescient narrows. The feeling isn\u2019t in contrast to what washes over him when he steps on stage to carry out for a packed live performance venue. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting in front of thousands of people is still nerve-wracking,\u201d the musician admits. \u201cBut what helps me is to focus on the small things like my breathing or hand positioning instead of all the people out there watching.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Climbing, Sharp says, isn\u2019t all that completely different.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of crossover,\u201d he notes. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to focus on what\u2019s below you or even what\u2019s too far above you. You just want to stay right there in the moment, with your big toe crammed into a tiny, tiny piece of rock, hoping that it\u2019ll take you a little bit higher.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A self-described \u201cclimbing novice,\u201d Sharp was launched to the game about two years in the past when his teenage son Wade joined the mountain climbing membership at his highschool. A pole vaulter, nationwide cyclo-cross and mountain bike racer, and all-around \u201cmeticulous, hard-working athlete,\u201d Wade was decided to grasp his latest curiosity. He was additionally decided for his dad to hitch in on the enjoyable.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe started taking some of his good friends to Rumbling Bald and spending entire days down there,\u201d says Sharp, who lives in Asheville, about 50 minutes north of the climbing space.\u00a0<\/p>\n The father-and-son duo have additionally logged fairly just a few hours at a cheekily named place referred to as The Dump. Nestled off Highway 221 between Blowing Rock and Linville, the realm dishes up a smorgasbord of sandstone cliffs with steep, slabby routes. During their final journey to the realm, Wade stepped up as lead climber, which was no straightforward activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think he bit off more than he could chew,\u201d says Sharp. \u201cBut it definitely took all of him to pull it off.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Undeterred, Wade is setting his sights on even more durable routes that snake up Stone Mountain, a large granite dome that rises from the North Carolina foothills. He\u2019s additionally pushing his dad to climb The Nose, an iconic, 500-foot route on Looking Glass Rock in Pisgah National Forest.<\/p>\n As Sharp continues to discover new climbing pursuits, his music profession is heading in some new instructions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this 12 months, Sharp and the remainder of the Rangers gathered on the Inn Bat Cave in Bat Cave, N.C., for every week to report the band\u2019s 14th studio album, \u201cMorning Shift.\u201d Officially launched on September 8, the report is the primary produced within the wake of guitarist and vocalist Woody Platt\u2019s departure.\u00a0<\/p>\n For these unfamiliar with the band\u2019s backstory, Platt, Sharp, and former bassist Charles Humphrey III met within the late Nineteen Nineties as college students on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2000, the trio formally emerged as Steep Canyon Rangers. A 12 months later, they launched their debut album, \u201cOld Dreams and New Dreams.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a lot of goals for it in the beginning,\u201d says Sharp. \u201cMusic was just something we all loved, and things naturally evolved.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That pure evolution has included three collaborative information with comic and film star Steve Martin, a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2013, and a spot within the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. Through all of it, Platt fronted the group on lead vocals. But final April, the Brevard native introduced he could be stepping away after almost twenty years with the band. (Humphrey departed 5 years prior.)<\/p>\n With Platt gone, the 5 remaining guys labored their community of music contacts and stumbled upon Aaron Burdett, a singer-songwriter and guitarist primarily based in Saluda, N.C. Three weeks later, Burdett discovered himself on the Hollywood Bowl performing in entrance of 18,000 followers alongside the opposite Rangers. The transition was seamless, says Sharp.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAaron is a really strong musical personality who has been writing songs for a long time,\u201d he notes. \u201cHe brings a deep well of music to us, and it blends perfectly with our style.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMorning Shift\u201d is a testomony to that. According to Sharp, the report delivers the signature Steep Canyon Rangers sound however is extra \u201cdynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs we recorded the album, our producer, Darrell Scott, was intent on making sure that Aaron would sing a song, Barrett [Smith] would sing a song, I would sing a song, and then we would repeat,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo, it\u2019s different from other records in that we are all telling stories from our viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n The songs are additionally a bit extra narrative in nature, says Sharp. \u201cHominy Valley,\u201d for example, steps centuries again in time and rehashes General Rutherford\u2019s marketing campaign towards the Cherokee through the Revolutionary War.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI live right near the big bend of Hominy Creek here in West Asheville where the English set up camp,\u201d says Sharp, who co-wrote the track with Burdett and Smith. \u201cThere\u2019s an apartment complex being built that has caused a big brouhaha in the neighborhood, so the song combines this history of the Cherokee fighting for their land with these modern confrontations of who gets to choose how the land is used.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s so much to pack right into a four-minute track, therefore why it took Sharp a number of years to fine-tune the lyrics. He lastly skilled a revelation one random evening after dinner\u2014an instance of how songwriting can occur wherever and anytime.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have to be sitting in front of a piece of paper,\u201d he says. \u201cI could be lying in my bed half-asleep. Or I could be walking down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Sharp has but to write down a track whereas mountain climbing, he\u2019s positive that inspiration might strike whereas he and his son, Wade, are summiting a crag.<\/p>\n \u201cMy writing process is sort of ongoing and everywhere,\u201d the musician notes. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of paying attention in the moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.blueridgeoutdoors.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/02-Graham-Sharp-Photo-Courtesy-IVPR-1024x1536.jpg?ssl=1)
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