Dale & Kris Ballinger

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Kris and Dale Ballinger are a husband and wife team well known in the Nashville music community as members of The Cluster Pluckers, a band formed by chance in 1980 at a local picking party.  They soon joined forces with world champion old-time fiddler, Frazier Moss, who taught them the spirit in which traditional music should be played and enjoyed.  Kris and Dale’s years with the legendary fiddler, now deceased, have made them one of the tightest rhythm sections in bluegrass music.  They are fine singers (they could probably sing harmony to a fence post!), and they also carry Frazier’s fiddle tune repertoire in their collective memory, passing the music down to future generations.

The Cluster Pluckers’ credits include gigs at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee; the American Folk Roots Concert Series at Carnegie Hall; television appearances with fiddler/hillbilly jazz king Vassar Clements and appearances with legendary guitar stylist Chet Atkins, in addition to a string of critically acclaimed albums.  The band played a 10-day, eight city tour in Japan—selling out every show, and they also shared their music with fans in The Netherlands and Norway during a 2001 tour.