Pam Gadd

Pam Gadd participated in the traditional bluegrass outfit New Coon Creek Girls as well as the country ensemble Wild Rose prior to launching her solo recording career in 1997. Her debut album The Long Road merged strengths from those two styles and was directed at the alternative bluegrass audience. A Kentucky native, Gadd supplied banjo, guitar, and lead vocals for Wild Rose, whose 1989 single “Breaking New Ground” reached the Top Ten. She and the other four members recorded for Universal Records and Capitol Records, collected a Grammy Award, and then disbanded in 1991.

Gadd turned professional in 1979. Her résumé includes eight album appearances, half a dozen videos, and television performances on Hee Haw, Nashville Now, The Late Show With David Letterman, and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. She lent her banjo skills to tracks by Terri Clark and Emmylou Harris, which earned her a 1999 nomination for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Emerging Artist Award. The 2001 OMS release The Time of Our Lives contains Gillian Welch’s “Patiently Waiting,” Gadd’s composition “All the Old Men Are Gone,” Randy Scruggs’s instrumental “Acousticizer,” plus “A Whole Lot of Heart,” “Virginia Man,” and “Hold Your Horses.” Her earthy vocals rival her powerful banjo playing.