Sean Watkins and the Bee Eaters

Sean Watkins, co-founder of Grammy-winning bluegrass band Nickel Creek, is joined by brother-sister duo Tristan and Tashina Clarridge, both Grand National Fiddle Champions, and hammer dulcimer wizard Simon Chrisman. Together, they weave a tapestry of sound all their own, drawing on roots in bluegrass, Celtic, jazz, and old-time traditions.

Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sean Watkins has long been known for his work as one-third of the Grammy Award-winning Nickel Creek and, more recently, for helming, with sister Sara, the itinerant, genre-hopping Watkins Family Hour ensemble. But in the last year he has more assertively – and impressively – taken on the role of solo artist. What To Fear is a follow-up to 2014’s acclaimed All I Do Is Lie, which had been Watkins’ first solo effort in nearly a decade, ten years that had been jammed with collaborative projects and a herculean amount of touring. On his own, Watkins displays tremendous warmth and soulfulness as a singer, a refreshing candor and humor as a lyricist, and prodigious skill as an arranger. And he doesn’t merely stick with the familiar: On What To Fear, he bolsters an acoustic lineup with a rock rhythm section, bringing drama and drive to these new tracks while keeping intact the emotional intimacy of all the stories he is telling.

While today’s new breed often produces an amalgamation of sounds and styles based on a distant view, The Bee Eaters were raised embedded in these traditions…raised to mold, meld, shape them, and carry them forward, leaving their own indelible marks in the process. With Tashina’s delicate fiddle and Tristan’s grounding cello wrapped around Simon’s ethereal dulcimer, they have created a never-before-heard sound in American music. No tricks. No pyrotechnics. Three instrumental voices, united in their musical exploration.

“…chamber music’s finely calibrated arrangements with bluegrass’s playful virtuosity and pop music’s melodic resourcefulness.” –The Boston Globe

“The Bee Eaters are the instrumental cream of the brand new string nation.”
–Darol Anger

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