Nickel Creek Reunites, Sets Spring Tour

Nickel Creek, the popular progressive acoustic trio that went on a self-described “indefinite hiatus” in 2007, is reuniting. To mark its 25th anniversary, the Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum-selling band will embark on a U.S. tour this spring and summer and is at work on a new album.

Tickets for the tour – including dates in Nashville (April 18 and 19), New York City (April 29), Boston (May 1), Washington DC (May 3 and 4, sold out), Chicago (May 9) and Oakland, CA (May 19) – go on sale Feb. 7. Nickel Creek also is slated to perform during the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, June 19-22. More tour dates may be added.

Here’s a link to a video of Nickel Creek performing “Destination” off its forthcoming album:

Nickel Creek was launched in 1989 by bluegrass child prodigies Chris Thile (mandolin and vocals), Sara Watkins (fiddle and vocals), both then eight, and Sara’s older brother Sean Watkins (guitar and vocals), who was 11 at the time. Thereafter, the band released five studio albums and one compilation recording — 2006’s Reasons Why (The Very Best) — and earned popular and critical acclaim. Time magazine dubbed the trio “music innovators for the new millennium” following the release of its self-titled debut album in 2000, while its 2002 follow-up, This Side, won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Although the trio initially followed a bluegrass orientation, Nickel Creek evolved into an acoustic outfit with a wide array of musical influences — prompting USA Today to note “This acoustic trio moves farther and farther from anything Bill Monroe would have recognized as bluegrass.” Yet, Nickel Creek helped to stir renewed interest in bluegrass and acoustic music and appealed to millions of fans – including many young people.

Besides performing and recording as a band, Nickel Creek’s members also had been engaged in solo and other collaborative projects which they pursued even more during the trio’s seven-year hiatus. All three plan to continue to do so.

Chris Thile, a multi-instrumentalist and composer who delves in bluegrass as well as other musical genres – including folk, country, classical and jazz – was among 23 people in various fields who were awarded “Genius” grants last year from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of having “shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Thile, who won the national mandolin championship at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas at the ripe old age of 12, released his first solo album of mostly original composition, Leading Off, the following year. In 1997, at age 16, he won both a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album and an International Bluegrass Music Award for album of the Year for True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe. He later won an International Bluegrass Music Award for Mandolinist of the Year (2001).

Over the years, Thile has released a number of solo albums and also has teamed up with such notable artists as mandolin player and multi-instrumentalist Mike Marshall, bassist Edgar Meyer (whom he has cited as one of his biggest musical influences), and cellist Yo-Yo-Ma. He recorded a well-received, Grammy Award-winning album entitled The Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Meyer and noted fiddle player Stuart Duncan; duo albums with Meyer and with guitarist Michael Daves; and has appeared on albums by such artists as Diercks Bentley, The Dixie Chicks, Scottish songbird Julie Fowlis, Sarah Jarosz, Dolly Parton, and Kate Rusby. His latest musical collaboration, Punch Brothers, sprung out of the How to Grow a Band, which he formed in 2006 and which also is the title of an independent documentary film that portrays Thile as he leaves the very popular Nickel Creek and launches an artistically ambitious new band. The five-member Punch Brothers has toured extensively, has released three albums and an EP, and is featured on the official soundtrack recording for the Coen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis.

Sara Watkins, who has held an informal residency at the Los Angeles nightclub Largo, along with her brother Sean, actively pursued a solo career while Nickel Creek was on hiatus. Her self-titled debut album, produced by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, was released by Nonesuch Records in 2009.

In the span of three years between it and her sophomore release, Sun Midnight Sun, she toured internationally both as a solo artist and as a guest fiddle player and vocalist with The Decemberists. She also has performed with Works Progress Administration, did a short tour of England and Scotland in with Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain, opened for and played with Jackson Browne during his 2012 acoustic winter tour (Browne also appears on Sun Midnight Sun), and toured with Donavan Frankenreiter, Robert Earl Keen and Tift Merritt as well. She also joined Garrison Keillor on his nationwide Summer Love performance tours and guest-hosted for him on A Prairie Home Companion. Sara also has accompanied her brother on two of his three solo albums.

Sean Watkins, who released several solo albums prior to Nickel Creek going on hiatus, plans to release another one, All I Do Is Lie, this year. Since the hiatus, he also formed the acoustic folk-pop band Fiction Family with Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot and co-wrote and co-produced tow albums – Fiction Family (2009) and Reunion (2013). Its musical orientation might be considered indie rock with bluegrass instrumentation. Watkins also launched the eight-member Americana group WPA — which also featured Greg Leisz, Benmont Tench, Pete Thomas, Davey Faragher, Glen Philips, Luke Bulla, and Sara Watkins.