Big Medicine consistently serves up a powerful potpourri of authentic old-time mountain music, early style bluegrass, original songs, and some surprises. The band has for over a decade been one of the most influential Old-Time bands in the contemporary American traditional music scene. Since the band came together in last year of the last millennium, Big Medicine has released three critically acclaimed albums and have performed for concerts, dances, festivals across the US and overseas. The band’s instrumental dexterity, powerful singing, and authenticity combined with a lively creativity in their interpretation of traditional music have won them fans and critical praise nationwide as well as overseas. Music critics and reviewers describe Big Medicine's blend of fiddle tunes, ballads, heart songs, hymns, and early bluegrass as “joyful,” “impressive,” “spirited,” and “powerful.” And from the stage of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor said of Big Medicine "That's how string band music is supposed to sound... absolutely effortless. They're just a great band - I love this band."
Members of the band are some of the most highly-regarded performers on the traditional music scene today. All four are veteran multi-instrumentalists and singers who are steeped in the ruggedly beautiful old-time music of the southern Appalachian and Ozark regions.
Jim Collier has been playing old-time and bluegrass music since high school days in Raleigh, N.C. Influenced early on by Appalachian musicians such as Roscoe Holcomb and Gaither Carlton, he carries a rich tradition of tunes and songs, ranging from hard-driving to sensitive and mournful. Jim is a superb rhythm guitar player and mandolinist, a knock-down banjo player, fiddler, and a great singer. Along with LaNelle Davis and Joe Newberry, he was also member of the Tarheel Hotshots, one of the finest North Carolina old-time bands of the 1990s. Jim lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also performs with the Rye Mountain Boys, a classic-style bluegrass band from Raleigh.
Bobb Head lays down the bass line and shares vocal harmony duties with Big Medicine, and every now and then is induced to produce some fine banjo or guitar picking. When he's not playing with Big Medicine, you can see him with the Stillhouse Bottom Band; with Dueling Shoes, a percussive dance ensemble; and the Deep Phat Friars, a irreverent southern-fried contra band. He has also performed with a number of pickup bands. Before moving to North Carolina, he played with the Privy Tippers in Tucson and, before that, with the Self-Righteous Brothers in Houston.
Kenny Jackson is one of the premier Appalachian traditional fiddlers of his generation, a player of uncommon subtlety and individuality, and he's a compelling singer, guitarist, and banjo player as well. Distinctive in his interpretation of traditional music while being deeply rooted in old-time sources from the southern mountain region, Kenny has been a part of one outstanding string band after another. He toured during the mid-80s with with Leftwich, Higginbotham, and Jackson, co-founded The Rhythm Rats in 1988, and Big Medicine in 1999. Kenny is also a sought-after fiddle teacher, working with individual students in person and online, and at traditional music camps across the country.
Joe Newberry is a Missouri native and North Carolina transplant who has played music most of his life. Best known for his powerful and innovative banjo playing, he is a prizewinning guitarist, fiddler, and singer as well. In addition, Joe’s gift for songwriting shows up in regular contributions to Big Medicine’s repertoire, as well as showing up in the Bluegrass hit parade through covers of his songs by popular performers. Joe also can be found making music with Red Clay Rambler founders Bill Hicks, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson. When not working as a writer and editor, he does solo and studio work, and teaches and performs at festivals at home and abroad.
Discography
Pine to Pine (Yodel-Ay-Hee, 2009)
Fever in the South (Yodel-Ay-Hee, 2004)
Too Old to be Controlled (Yodel-Ay-Hee, 2002)