The five members of Nash Street are all in their teens and twenties, yet they have a knowledge and talent for music far beyond their years. That extremely rare combination of a love for tradition along with a modern, radio and TV-friendly sound and look enabled Nash Street to capture the national championship of the 26th Annual Colgate Country Showdown in January 2008, win the $100,000 prize at the Ryman Auditorium, and create a major buzz along Nashville's famed Music Row.
To win this prestigious competition, Nash Street had to beat out over 50,000 other contestants from all over the USA. Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, and Martina McBride are just a few of the Country superstars who came out of earlier Colgate Showdowns.
Now it's Nash Street's turn. One year after their Showdown victory, the band is ready to take their career to the next level. They have all the requirements for stardom: remarkable musical talent, movie-star looks, a nonstop work ethic, and a sensational live show.
Nash Street consists of sisters Hannah Melby (fiddle, vocals) and Caroline Melby (mandolin, vocals), Daniel Hare (standup bass), Jason Graham (guitar, vocals), and Clay Lezon (lead guitar, vocals). Their name has nothing to do with Nashville, Tennessee. Nash Street is where they rehearse in their hometown of Starkville, Mississippi, and where three of the band's five members live.
"The Showdown was really amazing, when we started out we were kind of just doing it for fun," says Hannah Melby, who started the band with Daniel Hare way back in the fourth grade. "But when we kept winning and went to the nationals, people asked us what our dreams were. I've always dreamed of playing at the Ryman."
In Nash Street's story, dreams really do come true.
Caroline always looked up to her big sister, and followed Hannah and Daniel around to shows and rehearsals. She wanted to join the band in 2002 and initially dreamed of playing the banjo. But Larry Wallace, her teacher and the former banjo player for the legendary Bluegrass star Jimmy Martin, told Caroline that her best instrument would be mandolin.
"We wanted to make Nash Street a folk band at first," Caroline says. "Now we really play Country Bluegrass, with the emphasis on Country."
Nash Street fuses their virtuoso-level talents as Bluegrass instrumentalists with a Country sound to come up with a delightful musical mixture they call "Grassroots Country."
Daniel began playing bass in his school orchestra, loving both classical music and Bluegrass. "I love those old style, pre-1940s instruments," he says. "That's especially important for the fiddle, and Hannah was able to find one of those."
Hannah's distinctive fiddle style on her vintage instrument is a signature component of the Nash Street sound.
Daniel says that whether Nash Street is performing its own music or cover versions of older favorites, "we try to make everything our own. We work every day, rehearsing, creating, and writing."
Jason Graham joined Nash Street in 2005. As a kid he loved listening to the old Country and Bluegrass pickers who played every Saturday night at a little store outside of Starkville. Along with his guitar work, Jason helps arrange and perform Nash Street's beautiful and difficult vocal harmonies.
Clay Lezon, who joined Nash Street in the fall of 2007, plays the lead guitar solos, and often amazes even his bandmates with his talent. "He's just a phenomenal guitar player," Jason says.
Since the Showdown, life has changed somewhat for Nash Street because more folks on Music Row have heard of them, but their amazing work ethic and maturity haven't changed a lick. One thing that has changed for the better is the amount of time Nash Street is able to devote to their music and career. For the first time in their lives, these five remarkable young musicians are able to focus totally on their musical development. Until now, their attention had been divided between school and music. Progress is coming quickly because of this.
Musically, Nash Street combines the Bluegrass wizardry of artists like Nickel Creek and Ricky Skaggs' Kentucky Thunder and the Radio-ready Country hooks of stars like Rascal Flatts and Faith Hill. Visually, their matinee-idol looks remind us of bands like Little Big Town and Sugarland.
"All of us have been in this business for so long, and we don't want to make it just a career. It's more of a passion," Hannah says. "It's one of those jobs that everyone dreams of doing. I love entertaining people and at the same time entertaining myself. It goes both ways. And there's nothing better than playing original songs, and feeling the crowd react to our own music."
These days, the career of Nash Street is going one way: straight to the top.
