''Not Our First Goat Rodeo'' is a 2020 collaborative album by

Stuart Duncan Stuart Duncan (born April 14, 1964) is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Life Duncan was born in Quantico, Virginia, and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band. ...

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma ('' Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...

Edgar Meyer Edgar Meyer (born November 24, 1960) is an American bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. He has won five Grammy Awards and been nominated seven times. Meyer is a member of the Telluride Bluegras ...

, and

Chris Thile Christopher Scott Thile (; born February 20, 1981) is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive blue ...

, featuring

Aoife O'Donovan Aoife O'Donovan ( , ; born November 18, 1982) is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm ...

. It was released on June 19, 2020.

Background

On October 24, 2011,

and

(with

) released their first album together, entitled ''

The Goat Rodeo Sessions ''The Goat Rodeo Sessions'' is a 2011 collaborative album by Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile, featuring Aoife O'Donovan. The album won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album and the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non- ...

''. The album debuted at number one on the ''Billboard'' Classical, Classical Crossover, and Bluegrass charts and reached number eighteen on the ''

Billboard 200 The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artist ...

.'' It also won the

Grammy Award for Best Folk Album The Grammy Award for Best Folk Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for releasing albums in the folk genre. Honors in several ...

and the

Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical The Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by m ...

in 2013. The term ' refers to a chaotic event where many things must go right for the situation to work, a reference to the unusual and challenging aspects of blending classical and bluegrass music. Ma described a goat rodeo thus: "If there were forks in the road and each time there was a fork, the right decision was made, then you get to a goat rodeo." Ma has stated in an interview that the group had the idea to make a second album in 2011, while recording ''The Goat Rodeo Sessions''. In August 2019, Meyer shared photographs on social media of the group, including O'Donovan, in studio recording new material. On June 19 of the next year, this second album, ''Not Our First Goat Rodeo'', was released. On September 1, 2020, a

Tiny Desk Concerts Tiny Desk Concerts is a video series of live concerts hosted by NPR Music at the desk of ''All Songs Considered'' host Bob Boilen in Washington, D.C. The first Tiny Desk Concert came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music editor Stephen Th ...

was released by

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

in which the group performed three songs from the album. Because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, the musicians each recorded themselves individually from home for the set. The album has received praise from reviewers, who have cited the group's virtuosity, chemistry, and ability to bend

genres Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

Track listing

Personnel

The album features Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile on all 10 tracks. Aoife O'Donovan appears on 3 tracks as a featured vocalist. *

– fiddle,

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, vocals *

– cello *

–

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gu ...

, piano *

–

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

, vocals, guitar, fiddle *

– featured vocalist on tracks 3, 4, and 8

Reception

''Not Our First Goat Rodeo'' has been received well by reviewers. Catherine Nelson of

The Strad ''The Strad'' is a UK-based monthly classical music magazine about string instrumentsprincipally the violin, viola, cello and double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the large ...

praised the album's complexity and "sheer joyfulness of expression". Writing for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

, Matt Collar described the album as a "deeply engaging, often rapturous album that balances keen and studied musicality with an almost chaotic passion for group interplay". Comparing the album to ''The Goat Rodeo Sessions'', Justin Hiltner called ''Not Our First Goat Rodeo'' "more ornery, more confident, brash, and joyously off-kilter", and said that the ensemble "feels veteran" for a second album. The album also reached number one on the ''Billboard'' Classical, Classical Crossover, and Bluegrass charts.

References

{{Authority control Yo-Yo Ma albums Edgar Meyer albums Chris Thile albums 2020 collaborative albums