The SteelDrivers/Roanoke

In the mid-'90s, fiddle player Tammy Rogers and guitarist/mandolin player Mike Henderson played around Nashville with the Dead Reckoners, a ragtag group of country session players. The group didn't really set the town on fire, but it did get Rogers and Henderson to start collaborating and thinking outside of Music City's conventional country musical boundaries. In 2008, Rogers and Henderson recruited singer-guitarist Chris Stapleton and formed the SteelDrivers, a bluegrass band that sought to bring a bit of soul and R&B into the mix. Grammy nominations and critical praise have followed. For 2012’s Hammer Down, it recruited Gary Nichols, a singer-songwriter living in Muscle Shoals, to take Stapleton's place. Though Nichols' voice isn't quite as raspy, the band surprisingly doesn't miss a beat and sounds sharp on both Hammer Down and 2016's The Muscle Shoals Recordings. (Niesel)