Bluegrass supergroup that serves up comfort food for the soul to play the Vilar

Bluegrass supergroup Mighty Poplar just formed last year to tour live in its current configuration, but the musicians that make up the band share a long history.

The quintet is comprised of Watchhouse mandolinist Andrew Marlin, legendary fiddler Alex Hargreaves and three other virtuoso players from the Punch Brothers: banjo player Noam Pikelny, guitarist Chris “Critter” Eldridge and original Punch Brothers bassist Greg Garrison, the latter of whom is currently in Leftover Salmon.

The musicians have known each other for quite a while, crossing paths during tours and playing old tunes everyone knew, which is how Mighty Poplar began.

“There are many links between the different members of the band,” Eldridge said, pointing to Punch Brothers as just one. “Leading into when we made the Mighty Poplar record, it had been about 12 years since I’d gotten to play any music with Greg, but he is just such a great musician and someone I’ve always loved making music with. Noam and I still play together in Punch and have been musical compatriots since I moved to Nashville in 2004. I got to know Andrew over a number of years at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. We had any number of late night jams and picking sessions there. But I also love his music in Watchhouse. And I’ve known Alex since he was probably 10 or 11 years old. He has always been brilliant and adventurous and yet also so grounded musically.”

However, Stuart Duncan will take the place of Hargreaves tonight; Eldridge calls him “a proper legend and a true musical superhero to all of us.”

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While none of the band members stem from delineated bluegrass acts, they share commonalities with the genre. Though they had loosely talked about collaborating on a bluegrass project before 2020, during the pandemic, isolation and lack of touring with their regular bands caused them to come together and make music.

“It’s just something that you crave as a musician — to collaborate with your fellow musicians and see what kinds of sounds might emerge,” Eldridge said. “Eventually, we found a few days on the calendar, and everybody made the commitment to show up in Nashville. Making music is a form of communion, and the experience of us getting together eventually that year was just so joyful.”

The 10-track album that emerged leans on material from A.P. Carter, Bob Dylan, John Hartford, Leonard Cohen, Hazel & Alice, Uncle Dave Macon and Bill Monroe fiddler Kenny Baker.

“In isolation, everyone felt drawn toward bluegrass as the musical equivalent of comfort food,” according to a press release.

“Bluegrass in its less progressive form is just something that all of us hold dear and most of us rarely get to play. In Mighty Poplar, there really is a sense of coming home, of playing this music that we grew up with where we don’t feel like we’re reinventing the wheel. There’s an ease and playfulness but also a sense of drive and power available when playing this music that is hard to resist,” Eldridge said, adding that they chose “good songs that felt right.”

“It felt like coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas and being around family you’ve not seen in a while, in the home you grew up in with a turkey in the oven. It was that kind of comfort, the warm fuzzy feelings of gatherings like that,” Pikelny said.

Since Mighty Poplar has been touring, its repertoire has grown, along with the sense of coalescing as an actual band.

“When we made the record, despite us all having known each other prior, it was actually the first time that the five of us in that particular configuration had ever played music together,” Eldridge said. “On the record, you can hear us discovering each other musically as a band. Now, I think there’s even more trust and willingness to stretch out the parameters of the music that we’re making, but that’s happening in a very organic way.”

They’ve already compiled nearly enough songs for a new record — they just need to find time to get everyone together to make it happen. Mighty Poplar is still something the musicians pull off in-between other commitments with family and other bands. Still, as Eldridge points out: “I absolutely love being in this band and playing music with these guys, and I hope we get to do it for a long time.”

As for tonight, audiences can enjoy “five people who have dedicated their lives to music who are going to come give it all they’ve got,” Eldridge said.