Nashville Bluegrass Band
Bands / Ensembles
The Nashville Bluegrass Band (1984–2005) was a bluegrass band from Nashville, Tennessee, founded by guitarist and singer Pat Enright and banjo player and singer Alan O'Bryant, who had been playing together since 1974. The members first worked together in 1984 as a backing band for Vernon Oxford and Minnie Pearl. With Mike Compton on mandolin and Mark Hembree on bass, the band recorded its debut, My Native Home, for Rounder in 1985, produced by Béla Fleck. Fiddler Stuart Duncan joined and Hembree and Compton left after being badly injured in a 1988 tour bus accident with Roland White joined on mandolin, and Gene Libbea later on bass. The band's albums Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go (1993) and Unleashed (1995) both won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, and it was IBMA Vocal Group of the Year four straight years, from 1990 to 1993. It was one of the first bluegrass bands to perform in China. After White and Libbea left in 1998 the band took a short break, then gained new attention when Enright sang with the Soggy Bottom Boys on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. In July 2026 the IBMA named it a 2026 inductee into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. Enright died on August 18, 2026.