Darren Beachley & Legends Of The Potomac

Darren Beachley

Darren Beachley was born in June 1967 in Frederick, Maryland. Darren was influenced early in his life by the music of Jimmy Martin, Flatt and Scruggs, The Osborne Brothers and The Seldom Scene and like many young players Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Darren started playing Mandolin at age 4 and by age 9 was playing upright bass. Darren began his professional career with South Central Bluegrass in August of 1988. The band would record 2 projects for The Webco label and the song "I Pressed through the Crowd" would reach number 17 on the Bluegrass Unlimited National Survey. In September of 1991, Darren was hired to play dobro with the legendary Bill Harrell and the Virginians. Bill is quoted to say "I need a dobro and Darren is the best". Darren carries many of the lessons he learned from Bill to the stage today.

Darren would have the opportunity to further his musical career when Norman Wright of The Country Gentlemen called and asked him to be the tenor singer and guitar player in a new band that he was forming called "The Travelers". Darren would remain with The Travelers until October of 2003. Darren decided at this point that it was time to try his hand at being band leader and lead singer. That is when Darren Beachley and The Maryland Line was formed. The band released it's first CD "Remembrances" which was nominated for 5 WAMMIE's (Washington Area Music Awards).The follow up recording to "Remembrances" would be "I Love You To The Moon and Back" released on Tom T And Dixie Hall's Blue Circle records. The title track written by The Hall's and Larry Mcpeake would recieve a Wammie nomination for bluegrass album.

In November 2005 Darren would recieve a call from Doyle Lawson asking him to join Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Darren would spend 3 years with DL&Q serving as Lead/Tenor singer and bass player for the first year and a half, then switching to guitar for the last year and a half. During those 3 years DL&Q would win International Bluegrass Music Assocations Vocal Group of The year in 2006 and 2007. The first song Darren recorded with DL&Q "He Lives In Me" would win IBMA's gospel recorded event in 2006 and 2007. "He Lives in Me" would also become the second longest charting southern gospel song in history. Other highlights included the album More Behind The Picture" which spent 6 months atop The National Bluegrass Survey and peaked at number 2 on Billborad. "Sadie's Got Her New Dress On" would spend 6 months atop The Bluegrass Survey as number 1 song and would also become a number 1 video on CMT's pure pack 12. 2008 would bring "Help Is on The Way" which climbed to number one on the southern gospel charts, The first bluegrass band to crossover to the southern gospel charts and reach number one.

Darren is gifted with one of the clearest, most pure high lead and tenor voices in Bluegrass Music today. Many people compare Darren to Bobby Osborne and many other fine tenors . Darren makes his home in Brunswick, MD, with his wife Sherri and his three children.

Mike Auldridge

With his skill and his broad definition of the meaning of bluegrass music, Mike Auldridge became known over his multi-decade career as a master of the Dobro, or resonator guitar. Raised in Kensington, MD, he began playing guitar at 12, adding banjo when he was 16 and settling on Dobro at 17. In 1954, he made his first radio appearance on a local show, playing in a band with his brother, Dave. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1967 and became a commercial artist, while continuing to play at local clubs. In 1969, he joined The New Shades of Grass. That group soon gained a strong following and helped highlight Auldridge's unique expressive style on the Dobro. He joined The Seldom Scene in 1971, and remained with that group through multiple personnel changes up until the mid-'90s, then later re-joined them on a part-time basis in 2002. The group became pioneers of the newgrass sound which incorporated elements of jazz, folk, and rock into traditional bluegrass harmonies. Their eclectic material spanned original compositions as well as cover songs that ranged from J.J. Cale's "After Midnight" to Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally."

Such flexibility provided a good jumping off point for Auldridge's solo work, which was aided in the beginning by several members of The Seldom Scene. Auldridge's first two solo albums for Takoma, Dobro and Blues & Bluegrass, both feature a melding of unconventional cover songs, like Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly"; deep emotive playing; and the sometimes welcome, sometimes out-of-place contributions of high-profile guest stars like Ricky Skaggs and Linda Ronstadt. As he continued to record through the '70s for labels like Flying Fish, he also kept busy doing session work for Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Jonathan Edwards, and Jimmy Arnold. His work in the late '80s and early '90s for Sugar Hill, especially Eight String Swing, took his multi-genre experimentation