Four Wheel Drive
/Bluegrass09/headlining_acts/4-wheel-drive1)
Four Wheel Drive – probably the most talked-about and lauded European Bluegrass group of this past decade – has achieved great popularity without diluting or jazzing up this intriguing subgenre on the big Americana music tree.
In 2000, Four Wheel Drive’s first album, No Doubt About It, was released on Continental Records (now Rounder Europe) and this CD really got things going. Bluegrass Unlimited, the most popular American Bluegrass magazine, published a highlight review and a fulllength article on Four Wheel Drive, a very rare honour for a European band.
In 2002, Four Wheel Drive won the Best European Bluegrass Band Award at the European World of Bluegrass (EWOB) Festival and went to the United States to represent Europe at the World of Bluegrass Festival, where they received standing ovations. They also performed successfully at The Station Inn in Nashville, the American ‘Mecca’ of Bluegrass music and also at The Cobblestone in Dublin, one of Ireland’s most prestigious folk venues.
On top of that, Four Wheel Drive won the Audience Popularity Award at the annual EWOB festival in Voorthuizen, the Netherlands in 2006 and again in 2007. Also in recent years, Four Wheel Drive has won over audiences at prestigious festivals including here at the Ulster American Folk Park. The band’s repertoire is a mixture of hardcore Bluegrass, some Countryflavoured songs and some more Old- Time Celtic sounding instrumentals. They do not hesitate to throw in an acappella song once in a while either!
The versatility of this group of well seasoned traditional musicians, with a stunning instrumental and vocal technique, allows them to make a crossover from American Old-Time and Bluegrass styles to the European folk tradition. In doing so they seem to please Bluegrass, Country and Celtic/ Folk-oriented audiences all over Europe.
Four Wheel Drive has been playing a theatre show in the Netherlands for the last 5 years, called Somewhere Between – American Tunes. In this show they performed with female singer Jolanda Peters. As a result of this successful collaboration Jolanda was invited to sing a song on the band’s new CD and has been performing with the band on many other occasions of late.
Early in 2008 Four Wheel Drive released its longawaited second CD Another Town. In the linernotes, Richard Hawkins,editor of The Bluegrass Ireland Blog concludes “Here are Four Wheel Drive again, with their unfailing ability to take songs from across a range of familiar and unexpected places, and deliver them with freshness, vitality, and integrity”.