Keith Little has helped a lot of bands make great music, bands led folks like Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Laurie Lewis, Dolly Parton, Vern Williams, and Ricky Skaggs. He’s been the glue guy, “the blend-meister,” as Claire Lynch has called him and played on more than 60 albums as a sideman. Now he’s leading his own band of stellar musicians, and the result is a rich mix of bluegrass and acoustic blues, gospel and country, drawn from the best of traditional and contemporary sources, played with passion, precision, and delight in the musical possibilities. The LittleBand features Luke Abbott on fiddle, Steve Swan on bass, Josh Tharp on banjo, Michael Witcher on Dobro, and Keith on guitar. Everyone sings, and the vibrant harmonies add extra luster to Keith’s high lonesome sound. “This group can really serve it up,” Keith says. For a heaping helping of delicious bluegrass and blues, see Keith and the LittleBand at the Freight.

Blaine Sprouse has quite the musical pedigree. Born in West Virginia, the son of a clawhammer banjo player, he found pieces of a fiddle in a dumpster, glued them together, and started to play. By age 11, he was performing at local dances, and whenever Bill Monroe and his Blugrass Boys came around, Blaine tuned in to the fiddler, Kenny Baker. “He was my inspiration,” Blaine says. “Kenny made the fiddle sound like no one else had.” Blaine went on be a part-time Bluegrass Boy, as well as a Sunny Mountain Boy with Jimmy Martin, a Midnight Rambler with Bill Monroe’s son James, and a Johnson Mountain Boy. He’s toured and recorded with Charlie Louvin, Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys, and the Osborne Brothers, and played with such contemporary bands as Alabama, the Dreadful Snakes, the Sidemen, Nashville Jug Band, and the Cluster Pluckers. Blaine has played on scores of bluegrass and country albums, including four solo albums and a duet album with his inspiration, Kenny Baker. He’s currently based in the Bay Area.