The Earls of Leicester took shape when Dobro master Jerry Douglas joined forces with a select circle of elite pickers to salute one of bluegrass music’s most transformative ensembles. Devoted solely to songs written or made famous by Flatt & Scruggs during the 1950s—the band’s name cleverly twisting the duo’s given names, Lester and Earl—the group revives that classic repertoire with an intensity and drive that connects its spirit to contemporary listeners. Remaining faithful to the project’s guiding principle, the musicians tracked their albums with minimal studio gloss, allowing the interplay and immediacy of a stage performance to define both the 2014 self-titled debut and the 2016 follow-up, Rattle & Roar.
Jerry Douglas has long named Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs and their Foggy Mountain Boys as a formative influence, specifically crediting the band’s Dobro player, Josh Graves, with inspiring him to take up the instrument. Once his own career was established, Douglas occasionally contemplated assembling musicians capable of honoring the Flatt & Scruggs catalog yet doubted he could locate players who could authentically recreate that sound. His outlook shifted after sharing a session with fiddler Johnny Warren, whose father Paul Warren had spent years with the Foggy Mountain Boys; also present was banjoist Charlie Cushman, a veteran of the Nashville bluegrass community. Reflecting on the encounter, Douglas later observed, “The banjo, the fiddle, and the Dobro came together in a way that sounded exactly like what I’d heard so many years ago, the first time I saw Flatt & Scruggs.” He enlisted Warren and Cushman as the foundation of the tribute project, then added Tim O’Brien of Hot Rize on mandolin, Alison Krauss band member Barry Bales on bass, and acclaimed songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shawn Camp for vocals and guitar.
Calling the ensemble the Earls of Leicester and centering its set list on Flatt & Scruggs standards, Douglas and his colleagues entered the studio to cut a self-titled album issued by Rounder Records in fall 2014, after which the band performed several concerts. The release received enthusiastic acclaim within bluegrass circles, captured the 2015 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, and earned four honors at the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. Douglas reconvened the musicians for a second studio album in 2016; the lineup comprised Douglas, Camp, Warren, Cushman, Bales, and new mandolinist and harmony vocalist Jeff White. Recorded live in one room, Rattle & Roar appeared on Rounder Records in July 2016. The group maintained an active touring schedule through 2017 and 2018, preserving a two-night engagement at Nashville’s CMA Theater that became the source for a concert recording. The resulting 23-song collection, Live at the CMA Theater in the Country Music Hall of Fame, was released in September 2018.
