For the past seven or eight months I’ve been listening to these two albums of old-time and bluegrass music without a clue when they were released, who the players were nor how they landed in my library. I imagine the latter came about as a recommendation from Apple Music’s algorithms based on my listening preferences.

As I’ve been recently reviewing some of my favorite albums of 2024, I tried to get some information on these folks so I could include them but there is very little to find other than a Bandcamp page for one, and an AllMusic mention on the other. And both are available to stream on every major platform. Today I threw my hands up and went to my Chat GBT app to see if that platform could do any better than my Google searches. With a little interrogation and coaxing I got the story.

Released in 2014 and 2015, the duo turns out to be Chris Wadsworth and his then teenagedaughter Lily. And the friends on the second album include Molly Tuttle and David Grisman as well as a few more musicians. Huh…I know of a Chris Wadsworth, but could it be one and the same? Indeed it is. Yes, Chris began his music career as a bluegrass lead singer and guitarist with the Golden Elixir Bluegrass Band, but that’s not how I knew of him.

Chris is the founder of the annual FreshGrass Festival and heads up the foundation of the same name which owns No Depression and Folk Alley.Well heck, how did I not know that? As I spent over a dozen years writing for the ND website, I knew of Chris only as a music lover, whose day job was based in finance. Perhaps I’m the last to know about his other talents, and if you haven’t heard either of these albums, you’re in for a treat. The one on the left with simply father and daughter is my favorite, but the follow-up is right up there. Together they are two of my favorite “lost and found” albums of 2024.