Bluegrass all in the family for Cherryholmes

Cherryholmes never intended to be a powerhouse bluegrass group.

They didn’t know a lick about bluegrass music. They lived in southeast Los Angeles, Calif. At the most, Jere Cherryholmes thought the family band would play for senior groups at local festivals.

Nine years since forming, they have two Grammy nominations for best bluegrass album and were named the 2005 Entertainer of the Year from the International Bluegrass Music Association. They play the Grand Ole Opry every month and tour nearly non-stop around the country.

Friday evening, they will perform at the BamaJam Music & Arts Festival in Enterprise.

Made up of husband and wife Jere and Sandy Cherryholmes and four of their children, the band grew out of loss.

In 1999, the eldest of Jere and Sandy’s six children, Shelly, died in her sleep from respiratory failure due to a chronic condition that affected her heart. She was 20. It was an event that would have devastated any other family. Instead, the Cherryholmes prayed and turned to their faith.

A month after Shelly’s death, the family needed a break and spent a Sunday at a bluegrass festival in Norco, Calif.
“One of the things that happened that day was that we really enjoyed ourselves; we enjoyed the acts on the stage,” Jere said. “And the other thing was that I witnessed a lot of parking-lot picking going on, and I saw all different age groups playing at all different levels.”

Jere Cherryholmes thought the family should get some instruments and start a family jam session. The children — at that time, the four youngest were ages 7 to 15 — could play at whatever pace they could handle.

The family immersed themselves in bluegrass. They listened to NPR in the afternoons to hear bluegrass music. They stopped watching television.

“We basically purged our house of any music other than bluegrass,” Jere said. “We wanted everybody to be able to feel it. This kind of music is not something you can actually play intellectually. It has a certain feel to it, and it’s either right or it ain’t right.”

Sandy, who had formal musical training and home-schooled the children, learned simple bluegrass tunes on a fiddle.

The children imitated her and learned to play by ear.

Three months after forming, the group got a paying job. Word spread, and they were invited to play festivals. They competed in a family band contest and won. In 2002, Jere quit his job, they sold the family’s home and hit the road.

They made their first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry by 2003. The group received its first Grammy nomination in 2006 for their self-titled release on Skaggs Family Records. Their second release, “Cherryholmes II: Black and White,” came out in 2007.

Molly, 16, plays fiddle; Skip, 18, plays guitar; B.J., 19, plays fiddle; and 24-year-old Cia Leigh plays banjo. Jere plays bass, and Sandy plays mandolin. They all sing. Jere and Sandy’s 29-year-old son does not play with the band but is making them grandparents later this year.

Touring as a family has its ups and downs. Relationships between parents and children change as the children get older, Jere said. The kids learn early to be tough and more adult-like.

“You try to teach them to be responsible; you try to teach them to be respectful,” Jere said. “You want them to be respected. Well, you kind of use the band as a means of doing that, and so sometimes all of it gets really confused.”
Playing a festival like BamaJam with its mix of bluegrass, alternative, country and southern rock appeals to Cherryholmes.

“To us, we look at it as an opportunity,” Jere said. “ ... We’d like to expose our music and our show to a lot more people even in country and southern rock because I think we fit.”

Going from southeast Los Angeles to the Grand Ole Opry and the Grammys took on what Jere called a supernatural quality. He doesn’t have all the answers, but he feels it’s connected to Shelly’s death back in 1999.

“I have to feel somehow they’re tied together, and that the whole thing happened for a reason,” he said. “A lot of times, it isn’t up to us to figure out what the reason is as much as it is just to do what we’re doing and find out later.”

Bama Jam Music & Arts Festival

When: June 5 through June 7

Where: Corner of Highway 167 and County Road 156, north of Enterprise.

For tickets: Visit http://www.bamajammusicfestival.com; call (877) 4BamaJam; or visit participating O’Reilly Auto Parts.

THURSDAY, June 5

Stage 1 (country stage)

Ashton Shepherd — 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Heartland — 5:15 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Darryl Worley — 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Little Big Town — 8 p.m. to 9:15 p.m.

Randy Owen — 9:45 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.

FRIDAY, June 6

Stage 1 (country)

Rio Grand — 3 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Jason Michael Carroll — 4:15 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Houston County — 5:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Tracy Lawrence — 6:45 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.

Trace Adkins — 8:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

ZZ Top — 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Stage 2 (alternative stage)

Zac Brown Band — 2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Keller Williams — 3:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m.

Nanci Griffith — 4:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

Corey Smith — 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Old Crow Medicine Show — 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Stage 3 (bluegrass stage)

Pure & Simple — 1:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.

The Duhks — 2:45 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The Claire Lynch Band — 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Emmitt-Nershi Band — 5:15 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Cherryholmes — 6:45 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys — 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

SATURDAY, June 7

Stage 1 (country)

James Otto — 4:15 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Eric Church — 5:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Miranda Lambert — 6:45 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Lynyrd Skynyrd — 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Hank Williams Jr. — 10 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Stage 2 (alternative)

Wood Brothers — 1 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

Marc Broussard — 2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Railroad Earth — 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Yonder Mountain String Band — 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.

Gov’t Mule — 6:45 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Stage 3 (bluegrass)

Blue Highway — 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Mountain Heart — 1:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Dan Tyminski — 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The Del McCoury Band — 4:30 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder — 6:15 p.m. to 7:45 p.m.