Infamous Stringdusters, coming to Renfro Valley, still taking bluegrass in new directions

As they head into their 20th year as a band, The Infamous Stringdusters are feeling the tug of multiple bluegrass generations.

From the past comes a legion of string music specialists — artists like Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and the late Tony Rice, all learned in the ways of tradition but eager on recrafting the sounds they grew up on with their own methodology. Such ingenuity is what inspired dobro player Andy Hall, an instrumentalist reared as much on metal music as bluegrass, to move from Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music to Nashville. That’s where the Stringdusters evolved into Grammy-winning torchbearers for bluegrass ideas both progressive and traditional.

But for a band beginning their second decade, Hall and his bandmates are already sensing their tenure as new kids on the bluegrass block has concluded. Around them, younger bands and audiences are picking up on their music as readily as the Stringdusters did with the innovations Douglas, Bush and Rice began exploring in the 1970s.

“We all found our way to bluegrass on our own, taking different routes,” Hall said. “Jeremy (Garrett, fiddler and co-founding Stringduster) grew up in bluegrass, but most of us came to it a little bit later. Myself, I started as a heavy metal guitar player. But there is something about bluegrass that is special for both people who play it and people who enjoy listening to it. The fiery rhythm, the crackling banjo, the harmony singing and the energy around it all drew us each to the music individually.

“When we met, we were all in the thick of that initial fire of learning and playing bluegrass. We were all in Nashville, but we all had also an interest in progressive bluegrass, kind of the more modern sound. We were loving the sounds of traditional styles, but our heroes were people like Jerry Douglas and Tony Rice and Sam Bush, so we had a lot in common. Bluegrass and modern bluegrass, in particular, was the thing that drew us together in Nashville. We were all in different bands, but became friends and decided we wanted to do our own thing as opposed to playing for other people. So off we went.”

The breadth of the Stringdusters’ inspirations becomes apparent when listening to “Undercover, Vol. 3,” the newest in a series of cover tune EP recordings by the band. It dresses six decidedly non-bluegrass tunes with acoustic string band instrumentation. The record’s track list spans decades, as well as styles: The Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey,” Avicii’s “Wake Me Up,” Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like an Eagle,” ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man,” Harry Styles’ “As It Was” and Phish’s “Possum.”

“There are a lot of different ways you can take it,” Hall said of the song selection on “Undercover, Vol. 3” “A lot of times, it’s classic rock stuff because, A: It’s music we grew up with, and B: It’s music that’s pretty commonly known, even among younger people. These songs are ubiquitous in a lot of ways, like ‘Sharp Dressed Man.’ It’s amazing how wide of a net that music casts, so it’s fun to try and see how we can fuse our sound with some of these classic songs. Of course, we incorporate some Grateful Dead because they’re one of the bands that influence us the most.”

The Styles and Avicii tunes, however, hail from an era too recent to be rightly dubbed “classic.” But that only added to the fun of the recording.

“Well, these choices come from experiences in our lives. We saw Harry Styles at the Grammys when we went a few years ago. He performed that song. That was Travis’ idea,” referring to Stringdusters bassist Travis Book. “He wanted to wanted to try to play and perform it. So our choices for the other covers, it’s a variety of things — like commonly known songs, songs that we love and sometimes we’ll put on something very current that somebody in the band likes. But seeing Harry Styles at the Grammys and his performance there really had an impact on us. We thought, ‘This is a cool song. Let’s try this one.’”

The Grammy gathering that clued the Stringdusters into the Styles hit came in 2023. The band was up for Best Bluegrass Album in an all-star field that also included The Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan and Yonder Mountain String Band. While Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway emerged victorius, the Stringdusters took home honors in the category five years earlier for its 2017 album, “Laws of Gravity.”

But it was a very different award that first let the generations mingle. In 2007, the International Bluegrass Music Association bestowed Album of the Year honors to the Stringdusters in a tie-win with Central Kentucky bluegrass legend J.D. Crowe. The dual award went to “Fork in the Road,” the Stringdusters’ debut album, and “Lefty’s Old Guitar,” which turned out to be Crowe’s final recording with his New South band (the pioneering banjoist died in 2021.)

“More than anything, it was just an honor,” Hall said. “We were young. It was our first album. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome than to tie with J.D. Crowe. We could never be put next to him in terms of stature and influence. But that moment, to be recognized alongside him on the awards stage, was mindblowing.

“I don’t think he knew there was another band that tied with him. We just kind of marched up onstage with him. He was like, ‘Who are these kids? What are you guys doing here?’ We had to go, ‘We won, too.’ But he was such a great guy and such a legend. That sort of set the stage for us. We started to feel like, ‘Okay, this is the music where maybe we could make some inroads.’

“It also just shows the sort of accessibility bluegrass has, where you can meet your heroes, whether it’s as a fan at a festival or as a musician on a stage.”

The Infamous Stringdusters with 65 North Pickers

When: March 22 at 7 p.m.

Where: Renfro Valley Entertainment Center, 2380 Richmond St. in Mount Vernon

Tickets: $19.99 to $54.50 at renfrovalley.com.