about

Little Maggie combine the driving power of Bluegrass with songs of pop, American roots music and own compositions.

Little Maggie present wild fiddle soli, breathtakingly fast banjo and virtuous flatpicking guitar combined with dancing double bass and polyphonic vocals in the high lonesome sound of Bluegrass vocals

Little Maggie surprise with the tonal range of their voices and diversified harmony singing as well as varying instrumentation and stories between the songs, which provide almost true, but not always serious insight into the songs.

The eponymous song Little Maggie tells about a man’s love to a blue-eyed funny loving heartbreaker, who drives away her troubles by drinking whiskey and playing the banjo. Fallen in love, he still cannot accept her lifestyle, but will pay her fine, when she´s gone over the limit again. Little Maggie is true Bluegrass as it is a story about real life, women, booze, love, disappointment, a little bit of despite, and the relieving power of the banjo.

This „cheating“ is the basics of the Little Maggie band. While they always stay true to their bluegrass style, you will also find songs by Beatles (Lady Madonna), Grateful Dead (Midnight Moonlight), oder Billy Ray Cyrus (Achy Breaky Heart) in their program. In their musical approach the songs receive a new, unexpected sound even if you thaught that you knew them before. Little Maggie perfectly reflect a view of Bluegrass music in which it is never wrong to approach a song in a new way emphasizing that Bluegrass without the Blues is only Grass.

The song Little Maggie emerged as a traditional tune towards the end of the 19th century as part of a song group delineating the „white blues“, sharing some sounds, feelings and even lyrics of its cousin song „Darling Corey“. It uses the sounds frequently described as „modal“ (G maj. with F) employing a Mixolydian scale. It’s first recording by Gilliam Banmon Grayson (Gitarre) und Henry Whitter (Fiddle) in 1928, and the recording of the Stanley Brothers in 1946 were both in a relaxed and rather deliberate pace, which preserved the original oldtimey sound. Since then, it has been played and recorded at various tempos and styles from moanful (Bob Dylan) to bluegrass overdrive (Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder).