Michigan’s Greensky Bluegrass took first place at last weekend’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. A last-minute addition to the band contest, Greensky Bluegrass came out on top against 8 other bands, and as they note on their bulletin board, with only three hours of sleep!

The prize includes a cash award of $750, but even more valuable is the opportunity to perform at the main stage during next year’s festival.

Their latest CD, Tuesday Letter, is due for a July release on their private Big Blue Zoo label. It was produced by Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth. Some audio samples are available on the band’s web site. They also have audio on their MySpace page, and several live shows are available for download from archive.org.

Both Greensky Bluegrass and the Telluride Fest draw influences from what has come to be called the acoustic “jam band” scene, and the band represents their music as “jamgrass.” This growing genre might be described as being informed by traditional string band and bluegrass music, and performed on the instruments long associated with those formats, but intentionally breaking from the song structure and both harmonic and lyrical themes that define those styles.

Greensky Bluegrass includes Michael Arlen Bont on banjo, Dave Bruzza on guitar, Michael Devol on upright bass, and Paul Hoffman on mandolin.

We offer our congratulations on bringing home this prestigious award.