Who says you can’t go home again?

Special Consensus mandolinist Ashby Frank is profiled in his hometown paper, The Lexington Dispatch, in Davidson County, NC. Ashby was raised in nearby Tyro, and is given the hero’s welcome in the this lengthy piece to mark his return to the Doyle Lawson festival in Denton next weekend.

Anyone who saw Ashby Frank’s first public performance about 12 years ago as part of the Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver’s Bluegrass Music Festival in Denton would remember him as an awesome up-and-coming young mandolin picker who had a bad case of shyness.

On that stage tucked between towering oak and maple trees, he performed with a band he threw together to be a Thursday night opening act for the weekend-long festival. The band featured his older sister, Jeannie Frank, on vocals. Then, she was known as the singer in the family and he the musician.

But when the 25-year-old Frank comes home next weekend to perform in the same bluegrass festival on the same stage, he won’t be that quiet young man standing on the side of the stage tearing up the mandolin. He’ll also be the new lead singer for the legendary bluegrass band Special Consensus.

You can read the full article by Jill Doss-Raines, which includes an interview with Ashby, on The Dispatch web site.