MANSFIELD — It’s a band that features five talented and versatile musicians who just happen to play bluegrass.
But to Scott Osborne, the leader of the Lincoln Highway Bluegrass Band, this is not your grandfather’s bluegrass group.
Music lovers will get a chance to hear that sound on Saturday night when the five-man band performs in concert at the Mansfield Playhouse at 7 p.m. Tickets are available online for $12.
The roots of the musical genre extend back to performers like Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys and The Stanley Brothers, Appalachian musicians who began to combine traditional Scottish, Irish and English folk music with African-American blues and jazz influences in the 1940s and 1950s.
Monroe’s music, characterized by its high-pitched vocals, quick tempo, and banjo and fiddle instrumentation, became the foundation for the bluegrass genre.
Lincoln Highway Bluegrass Band
Scott Osborne – Banjo, guitar and band leader
Lee Rachel – Guitar and lead vocals
Randy Sutter – Mandolin and vocals
Larry Cadle – Bass and vocals
Jon White – Dobro and vocals
But today’s modern bluegrass music is found in the more rebellious sounds of performers such as Billy Strings and The Dead South.
Osborne said he believes the Lincoln Highway Bluegrass Band has players talented enough to work through nearly all of it — and do it a fast pace.
“We play a little bit of everything,” he said. “We are considered a very hard-driving bluegrass group. We have speed and we have volume.
“For the most part, we are considered a contemporary bluegrass band, which means it’s not the old-fashioned singing,” he said.
It’s a north central Ohio group that has performed together under the Lincoln Highway Bluegrass Band name since March 2023.
Its first performance was in April 2023 at the Hayesville Opera House and the band has been busy ever since with gigs “all over the place,” according to Osborne.
“I would say we are a very different group of people who play a lot of different styles of music,” said Osborne, the oldest member of the band whose own roots trace back to the Stone Mountain Boys in Ashland in the 1970s/1980s.
“But we have all been bluegrass somewhere in the past.”
Osborne’s personal bluegrass roots reach back to Earl Scruggs on the five-string banjo, one of the instruments he now plays in the band.
“But I like a lot of the progressive stuff. I really like Tony Trischka, and Bela Fleck. Bela Fleck is just off the charts,” he said.
“I just kind of followed my own course and did a combination of things that sounded good and that I liked and I probably emulate some of all of these guys in my stuff,” Osborne said.
Selecting from a wide variety of American music to play during a show is probably more difficult than the band’s decisions on choosing a name.
“We all basically live in north central Ohio. We consider Mansfield to be our home base. I used to have a recording studio in Hayesville, which was on the old Lincoln Highway. Most of us, every day, we’re traveling some section of the Lincoln Highway.
“It’s part of our everyday lives. It’s got a great history. So we thought, ‘What better name could we have?’ being from Mansfield, Ohio,” Osborne said.
He said bluegrass musicians can honor their roots, but must also play for today’s audiences.
“You still have a lot of the traditionalists, who want to hear that old Bill Monroe style and The Stanley Brothers. Those are still out there.
“But over 50 years, a lot of them have dropped off (as audience members). What you’re seeing now is more of what I would consider to be a contemporary bluegrass crowd, which is probably in their 30s, 40s and 50s who really like that progressive sound,” he said.
The Lincoln Highway Bluegrass Band line-up
Scott Osborne — Grew up playing the festival circuit and was a regular at the Wheeling (W.Va.) Jamboree. He played with the Stone Mountain Boys at Jamboree in The Hills.
Lee Rachel — Grew up playing bluegrass gospel. Brings hard-driving bluegrass alive with his Martin guitars in every show.
Larry Cadle — Entertaining personality who plays multiple instruments on stage. Can sing lead, baritone and high tenor for the group.
Randy Sutter — Plays multiple instruments, including mandolin in the band. Grew up playing bluegrass gospel. A master on the mandolin.
Jon White — From Newark, Ohio, he is the only “non-local” band member. Brings the soulful dobro to life on stage and has been “strumming and sliding” since 2006. Set off to be a musician at age 4 when he heard Glen Campbell sing “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
Despite growing up in the area, Osborne said he had never been inside the Mansfield Playhouse at 95 E. Third St.
“We had a lot of people telling us we needed to perform at the Playhouse, but I didn’t know anybody there. I called Doug (Wertz, the Playhouse artistic director).
“He listened to some of our music and thought this would be a great way to diversify their events and bring in a bluegrass crowd,” Osborne said.
All of the five musicians have full-time jobs, though they still manage to play as many as 40 dates a year.
“We can only do so much,” said Osborne, the director of financing at Graham Auto Mall. “That’s about the limit of what we can do and still have families and work and maintain a normal life.”
