Crooked Still is an American band consisting of vocalist

Aoife O'Donovan Aoife O'Donovan ( , ; born November 18, 1982) is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm ...

, banjo player Gregory Liszt, bassist Corey DiMario, cellist Tristan Clarridge and fiddler

Brittany Haas Brittany Haas (born 1987) is an American fiddle player, who also sings and plays the banjo. She is a member of the Boston-based alternative bluegrass band Crooked Still, which is currently on hiatus. She is a regular performer on Live From Her ...

. They are known for their high energy, technical skill, unusual instrumentation, and innovative acoustic style. The string band's style has been described as

progressive bluegrass Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Like mainstream country music, it lar ...

, folk-country, and

Americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

. O'Donovan states that the band is playing its "own sort of continuation" on the bluegrass tradition that began in the U.S. with

Bill Monroe William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre take ...

and Jimmy Martin.

History

2001–2008

O'Donovan and DiMario met at the

New England Conservatory of Music The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on H ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

in the spring of 2001. Former member Rushad Eggleston, who was studying cello at Berklee College of Music, and Liszt, a graduate student at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, were playing music together around the same time, and when the four met that summer, they formed a band that became Crooked Still. While its members finished school, the group played various Boston venues, growing in popularity and collecting favorable reviews from the local press. Crooked Still went on to appear at concert halls, festivals, coffeehouses, and nightclubs in 23 states and several countries. On August 22, 2006, the group released their second album, ''Shaken by a Low Sound''.

From 2008

Cellist Rushad Eggleston performed his last show with the band on November 18, 2007, at the

Iron Horse ''Iron horse'' is an iconic literary term (considered by the early 21st century to be transitioning into an archaic reference) for a steam locomotive, originating in the early 1800s, when horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domes ...

in Northampton, Massachusetts. He parted ways with Crooked Still to pursue his own music with band Tornado Rider. In January 2008 two new members joined the band: cellist Tristan Clarridge and fiddler Brittany Haas, both of whom have toured in

Darol Anger Darol Anger is an American violinist and founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Career Darol Anger entered popular music at the age of 21 as a founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Anger played fiddle to David Grisman's mandol ...

's Republic of Strings. The Darol Anger connection goes further: Rushad Eggleston was in Fiddlers 4 in 2002. The band released its first album with the new lineup, '' Still Crooked'' in 2008, a live album in 2009, and ''Some Strange Country'' in 2010.

2011 and beyond

In honor of their tenth anniversary together as a band, Crooked Still embarked on a major tour of the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest, and released a 7-song EP called ''Friends of Fall'' in October 2011. After the final show of their 2011 tour, Crooked Still took a three-year touring and recording hiatus (originally planned to be one year) for its members to pursue other musical projects. Crooked Still performed at the FreshGrass festival in North Adams, Massachusetts, in September 2017. In June 2018, Crooked Still songs "

Little Sadie "Little Sadie" is a 20th-century United States, American folk music, folk ballad written in Dorian mode. It is also known variously as "Bad Lee Brown", "Cocaine Blues", "Transfusion Blues", "East St. Louis Blues", "Late One Night", "Penitentiary B ...

" and "Ecstasy" were featured in the gameplay trailer for ''

The Last of Us Part II ''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable chara ...

'' presented at

E3 2018 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 (E3 2018) was the 24th E3, during which hardware manufacturers, software developers, and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily retailers a ...

. These songs, along with "

Ain't No Grave Ain't No Grave (also known as Gonna Hold This Body Down) is a traditional American gospel song attributed to Claude Ely (19221978) of Virginia. History Claude Ely, a songwriter and preacher from Virginia, describes composing the song while sick w ...

" were included in the final game.

Discography

Albums

Live albums

Music videos

References

External links

{{Authority control American folk musical groups American bluegrass music groups Old-time bands Musical groups from Boston Progressive bluegrass music groups Signature Sounds artists