Fans of Missy Raines and Allegheny were in for a treat at the release for their new album Highlander, set for a February 9 release, on Tuesday night. The Analog Stage at the Hutton Hotel in Nashville was full of talent as the night began—and it kept getting fuller. The band opened with older tunes as she introduced her band—Eli Gilbert on banjo, Tristan Scroggins on mandolin, Ellie Hakanson on fiddle, and Ben Garnett on guitar, with Raines playing her iconic standup bass and trading on leads and harmony. They started with “I’ve Endured” followed by “When the Cold Rain Is Falling” which Scroggins said he listened to “back in the 1900s,” a running joke through the night.
Raines dedicated “Trying to Get to You” to the great Roland White. Hakanson sang “Scraps from Your Table,” one of her favorite Hazel Dickens songs and Garnett followed with the Carter Family’s “Are You Tired of Me, My Darling?”
Shifting to their new project, they played with the first track, “Listen to the Lonesome Wind,” which opens with a haunting intro before shifting tones. Raines on bass kicked off the beautiful “I Would Be a Blackbird,” noting that Laurie Lewis sings on the record.
Introducing “I’m Looking to You,” Raines told of the personal influences that inspired her to write it during lockdown. Alison Brown, who produced the album on her Compass Records label, joined on banjo. They also played “Who Needs a Mine?” inspired by the opioid epidemic in Raines’ native West Virginia, a track on the album that features Kathy Mattea.
Throughout the night, the band members referenced their musical influences, encouraging the audience to look up the recording artists they mentioned, including Dudley Connell who played with the Johnson Mountain Boys and now plays with Seldom Scene. For “Ghost of Love,” Allegheny was joined by fiddler Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, whom Raines called “the only one on stage who has won a Grammy in the last twenty-four hours,” referring to the win for Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway. Ben Surratt, who sang on the album, also joined on vocals.
The evening followed the “more is better” mantra, as Shad Cobb joined Hakanson and Keith-Hynes for triple fiddles and Ryan Paisley added his mandolin licks to those of Scroggins, as his father Danny Paisley of the Southern Grass added vocals. Brown also returned to the stage for “Are You Ready to Say Goodbye,” which Raines wrote in response to the loss of siblings. The song opened with a moving instrumental prelude featuring the mandolin, which she noted they had not recorded.
For the final track from the new album, the band was joined by their last guest, the multiple award-winning dobro player Rob Ickes for “Panhandle County” referred to as a bit of a tribute to Seldom Scene’s rendition, while incorporating a “Monroe element with fiddles.” By the time they played their finale—“Tallahassee” and “Roll On, Buddy,” the Analog stage was power-packed with bluegrass talent.