ARTIST

Nickel Creek

Southern California trio Nickel Creek has come a long way since their days as a bluegrass kids band over a decade ago.

Sara Watkins (violinist), her brother Sean (guitarist), and Chris Thile (mandolin player) met when their parents took them to see southern Cali band, Bluegrass Etc., at a weekly pizza parlor show. At the time, Chris and Sean were already taking mandolin lessons from the band's guitarist/mandolin player John Moore while Sara was learning the fiddle from Moore's longtime partner Dennis Caplinger (Bluegrass Etc.'s vocals, fiddle, and banjo). The three received their education through home schooling while preparing to start a kids band in 1990 with Chris's father, bassist Scott Thile, upon the suggestion of a bluegrass promoter. The father-son and sister-brother foursome toured various festivals for nearly a decade and even won themselves a regional championship award at the Pizza Hut International Bluegrass Music Showdown among other southern California band contests.

Scott Thile left the band by the time Nickel Creek's self-titled debut was released in 2000, selling more than 700,000 copies and certified gold two years later. The single from the album, "Reasons Why" climbed to No. 1 on the Americana chart and remained there for six weeks. Since their gold-selling debut, Nickel Creek has received two Grammy nominations in 2001, held a top 20 spot on Billboard's Country Album chart, performed on the Tonight Show With Jay Leno, had three hit videos on CMT, been named the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Emerging Artist of the Year and Instrumental Group of the Year, toured with Lyle Lovett and performed alongside Dolly Parton at the Grammy Awards, sold out shows across the country, and been named in Time magazine as one of five "music innovators for the millennium."

Nickel Creek is comprised of notable individual talents: Sara Watkins, the Arizona State Fiddle Champion at age 15, Sean Watkins, a finalist in the National Flatpicking Guitar Championship at age 16, and Chris Thile, a IBMA nominee for mandolin performer of the year for five years running who also has two solo albums released on Sugar Hill.

The group's sophomore effort, This Side, superbly produced again by Alison Krauss, was released in the fall of 2002 and showed the band's musical evolution from melding jazz, rock, and classical music to a bluegrass foundation to becoming true innovators of the scene by pushing the boundaries of tradition through implementing influences such as Radiohead, Bela Fleck, Turtle Island String Quartet, Edgar Meyer, Pat Metheny, Elliott Smith, and Bach to their creative and genuine textures and arrangements.

The acoustic innovators, nominated for the second time for CMA's Horizon and Vocal Group of the Year Awards in 2002, also won a Grammy in 2003 for best contemporary folk album for This Side. With their compelling combination of pop-folk lyrics, original acoustic licks, sophisticated layering, and eclectic arrangements combined with early bluegrass training, Nickel Creek is set to reinvent contemporary bluegrass with an edge that will captivate even the younger generation.

Written by Minnie Chi