Yonder Mountain String Band at the Codfish Hollow Barn -- August 21.
Wednesday, August 21, 8 p.m.
Codfish Hollow Barn, 5013 288th Avenue, Maquoketa IA
Praised by Marquee magazine for their “dynamic presence” and for “continuously pushing the genre of bluegrass and their legacy within the genre,” the gifted musicians of Yonder Mountain String Band headline an August 21 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the musicians' most recent album, 2022's Get Yourself Outside, hailed by Glide magazine as “an antidote for feeling down. These 11 songs just make you feel good, like putting on your favorite sweater to ward off the cold.”
Presently composed of Dave Johnston on banjo, Ben Kaufmann on bass, Adam Aijala on guitar, Coleman Smith on fiddle, and Nick Piccininni on “everything,” the Yonder Mountain String Band originated in Urbana, Illinois in 1998, when Johnston requested original bandmate Jeff Austin to join and sing in his ensemble The Bluegrassholes. Austin, who played no instrument at the time, revealed to Johnston that he did own a mandolin, and Johnson told him to come to the performance and “play anything, just play fast and loud.” The Bluegrassholes disbanded not long after, and Johnston and Austin subsequently moved to Colorado, where they met Kaufmann and Ajaila at a local club. In December of 1998, the four musicians formed Yonder Mountain String Band and enjoyed their first gig at Boulder's Fox Theatre, quickly developing both bluegrass and jam-band fan bases and releasing their album debut Elevation in the fall of 1999.
Following 2000's Mountain Tracks: Volume I and 2001's Town by Town, Yonder Mountain String Band had its first Billboard hit with 2002's Mountain Tracks: Volume 2, which made it to number 11 on the Bluegrass chart and led to honors such as the musicians' inclusion on the 2005 album This Bird Has Flown – A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul and a performance at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. The group also boasted three consecutive albums – Yonder Mountain String Band, Mountain Tracks: Volume 5, and The Show – that landed at number three on the Billboard Bluegrass chart. After Austin's 2014 departure and fiddler Allie Kral's and mandolin player Jacob Joliff's 2015 arrivals (though both respectively left the outfit in 2022 and 2020), Yonder Mountain String Band scored another top-three hit in 2015's Black Sheep, an album that Relix magazine said “finds the conventional and the contemporary in a perfect mesh.”
A similar top-three hit landed with 2018's Love. Ain't Love, a recording praised by Live for Live Music as a work in which the chart-topping group “finds plenty of new twists on the way to making a stellar record.” And the Yonder Mountain String Band is currently touring with another top-five Billboard smash under the musicians' belts, Get Yourself Outside hailed by Americana Highways as an album in which the “interplay between guitar, banjo, and fiddle seduces the listener while mandolin and bass push the train ever onward.”
The Yonder Mountain String Band plays their headlining engagement in Maquoketa on August 21 with an additional set by River Valley Rangers, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is $45, and more information and tickets are available by visiting CodfishHollowBarnstormers.com.
