When one thinks of today's bluegrass veterans, names like Ralph Stanley, Del McCoury, Doyle Lawson, and J.D. Crowe no doubt come to mind. Like those legends, Greg Cahill, the cofounder and leader of The Special Consensus has devoted his life to playing bluegrass music, and he's one of the music's most active ambassadors. So if he slips under the radar initially, perhaps it's because, paradoxically, he's "always there" while being constantly on the move.

The movement, of course, refers to Cahill's tireless touring. As Pinecastle Records owner and president Tom Riggs puts it, "He is the proverbial road warrior. His band is out there on the road day after day after day. They don't take many days off; they're just out there playing."

Indeed, the first time I spoke with Greg, he was driving from Nashville (where he picked up Special C members Justin Carbone, Tres Nugent, and Ron Spears) to Knoxville to play the WDVX Blue Plate Special at noon. That night they played the Down Home in Johnson City before heading over to North Carolina for weekend gigs with a WNCW radio performance and meetings and lunch with Pinecastle staff sandwiched in between. After Saturday night's show in Shelby, North Carolina, they drove most of the night to make a Sunday afternoon performance in Pennsylvania.
He checked in again just after a nine-day European run with gigs in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and The Netherlands; a festival in Illinois; and a week of workshops in British Columbia. He had just picked up "the boys" in Nashville and they were driving all night to the Two Rivers Bluegrass Festival in Leaksville, Mississippi. From there, it would be back to Nashville for a week of recording before a long (three-day) Easter weekend off. The exhilaration in his "Whew!" suggests he may have just taken his first deep breath in a month.

""We just stay on the move. We don't have time to get tired that way." He notes though that the four-day run is more common now than the four-week odyssey. In addition, he's learned how to eke out occasional extra free day. "I've learned over the years: the more you can get the guys home to just chill out a bit and be away from each other (no matter how well you get along), it just helps keep the morale up. It keeps the music fresher."

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