Old Salt Union (OSU) is a

newgrass Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Like mainstream country music, it la ...

/ americana string band from

Belleville, Illinois Belleville is a city and the county seat of St. Clair County, Illinois, coterminous with the now defunct Belleville Township. It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. The p ...

. They have cited musical influences from jazz, classical, jam band and alternative. The band formed in 2012 and have since performed at many national festivals including

LouFest The LouFest Music Festival was an annual two-day event held in Forest Park, located in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The event featured local, regional and national acts, with an aesthetic range from funk and indie-rock to alt-country and s ...

Stagecoach Festival The Stagecoach Festival is an outdoor country music festival held annually at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Various artists attend, whether they be mainstream or relatively unknown, ranging from folk, mainstream country, bluegrass, ...

Bluegrass Underground ''Bluegrass Underground'' is a musical television show taped live at The Caverns in the base of Monteagle Mountain. From 2008 to 2018, it was held in Cumberland Caverns. In 2011, it became a nationally syndicated television show airing on PBS. The ...

, Winter Wondergrass, Freshgrass, featured on Music City Roots, Wakarusa, Yonder Mountain String Band's Harvest Festival, played the 2014

Daytona 500 The Daytona 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series motor race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is the first of two Cup races held every year at Daytona, the second being the Coke Zero Sugar 400, and one of three ...

FloydFest FloydFest is a Music and arts festival held annually near Floyd, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains History The event began in 2002, and spans five days each year with on-site camping and multiple stages featuring rock, bluegrass, regg ...

, Camp Euforia and the Walnut Valley Festival. The band was voted Best Bluegrass Band in St. Louis by The Riverfront Times in 2013 and Best Country Artist in 2014. Old Salt Union's line-up consists of Ryan Murphey (

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 ...

), Jesse Farrar ( Upright Bass), Justin Wallace (

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 ...

) and John Brighton (

Fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

). Old Salt Union has released two independent full-length albums a four track live vinyl "Woodshed" and in early 2016 released an EP entitled "Cut & Run." They recently recorded a single in Nashville, TN with Alison Brown. They have either shared the stage or opened up for national acts Sam Bush, Del McCoury,

The Travelin' McCourys The Travelin' McCourys is a bluegrass band from Nashville, Tennessee, formed in 2009. The band is composed of brothers Ronnie McCoury, Rob McCoury, Alan Bartram, Jason Carter, and Cody Kilby, and was formed out of the Del McCoury Band, in wh ...

, Leftover Salmon, The Reverend Horton Heat, Greensky Bluegrass, Lonesome River Band, Jeff Austin, Son Volt and Yonder Mountain String Band. Founding member Dustin Eiskant left the band mid 2016 and Old Salt Union announced Rob Kindle would be his replacement. Rob left the group in July 2018 and the band selected Graham Curry to be their guitar player immediately thereafter. Graham left the band at the end of December 2019.

Self-Titled Debut

Old Salt Union signed with

Compass Records Compass Records is an independent record label founded in 1995 by musicians Garry West and Alison Brown that specializes in folk, bluegrass, Celtic, jazz, and acoustic music. In 2006, Compass purchased the Green Linnet and Xenophile catalogs, ...

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...

in early 2017 and released their

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

ous record on August 4, 2017. The album features ten re-arranged, re-mixed and re-mastered previously recorded tracks from the band's catalog - including a rendition of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al". The album is produced by Alison Brown and was recorded at Compass Records Studios in Nashville, TN.

Where The Dogs Don’t Bite

Old Salt Union released their second

album, "Where The Dogs Don't Bite", on August 16, 2019 to critical acclaim. The album contains 10 tracks of original material, one of which, "Tell Me So", is a duet with famous bluegrass performer and tenor

Bobby Osborne Bobby Osborne (born December 7, 1931) is an American bluegrass musician. He is the co-founder (with his brother Sonny Osborne) of the Osborne Brothers and a member of the Grand Ole Opry and the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. He also ...

. The release reached number one on the

Billboard Charts The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in '' Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, p ...

bluegrass albums for the week of August 31, 2019.

Discography

*Western Skies (2013) *Bridge (2014) *Woodshed (2014) *Cut & Run (2016) *Old Salt Union (2017) *Where The Dogs Don't Bite (2019)

References

{{reflist Musical groups from Illinois