Sidemen
Bands / Ensembles
The Sidemen (1989–) were a bluegrass band that played a regular Tuesday-night show at the Station Inn in Nashville, Tennessee, starting in 1989. The band was a loose, rotating group of Nashville sidemen and session players who otherwise work for other artists. Terry Eldredge was an original member and the band's main front man. Dobro player Gene Wooten played with them for more than ten years until his death in 2001. Other players and fill-ins have included fiddlers Jason Carter and Shad Cobb, mandolinists Mike Compton and Ronnie McCoury, Jamie Johnson, banjo players Dave Talbot and Rob McCoury, and Steve Earle sometimes sat in for extended sets. In 2003 the Grascals, with Eldredge, Johnson and Talbot among their founders, grew out of the Sidemen's sessions and began touring with Dolly Parton.