Byline: Serena Markstrom The Register-Guard

Although its members span several generations, all five players in the Green Mountain Bluegrass Band are on the same page when it comes to a musical vision for the group.

Live, the local band plays traditional bluegrass music while

For its first CD, each of the five singers had his own mike in the studio. But they performed the songs together, taking the best performances and putting them on the CD with minimal tweaking.

As a result, those who buy the CD will be treated to something very similar to the way the band sounds live.

The band is releasing "Live at Sprout City Studios" Saturday at Sam Bond's Garage. It could perform as many as 75 songs over the course of the evening.

The live album was recorded eight months ago at the west Eugene studio. It features 13 tracks, four of them by Bill Monroe, considered the father of bluegrass.

"I wouldn't say it's a dying art form, but it is definitely not mainstream," band leader and banjo player Chuck Holloway said.

In its early days, when Monroe was first making his way in the music world, bluegrass was lumped in with old-fashioned country music. Holloway listened to it on the radio late at night, when his father came home from work.

Both bluegrass and traditional country started to slip out of favor in the late 1950s, a bio of Monroe says, as a more polished Nashville sound became the standard in country music.

The Green Mountain Bluegrass Band recorded its debut CD live on a single recording track in homage to the "raw" sound that was popular before the rise of that "slick" alternative, Holloway, 59, said.

Mandolin player draws praise

Holloway hosts the bluegrass jam the first and third Tuesdays of each month at Sam Bond's Garage, something he has been doing for more than a decade. He met some of the other players in his band through that jam, including rhythm guitarist Dennis Berck.

Holloway met mandolinist Tyler Lynn in 1996, when Lynn was fresh out of South Eugene High School, through all-ages jam sessions held at the Coburg Grange Hall.

"I just gave him a bunch of music I had that I knew he could play very well," Holloway said of Lynn.

Berck, well-known to local musicians as a stringed-instrument maker, said he thinks Lynn is one of the best Monroe--style mandolin players in the Willamette Valley.

At 26, guitarist Gary Dunbar is the baby of the group. But Holloway said he's the most versatile.

Bass player Mike Bray is the newest member of the Green Mountain Bluegrass Band, which named itself after the Central Oregon peak when the no-name band found it had a 2006 gig booked in Cottage Grove.

"We got together and realized that, boy, people really want to hear our music," Holloway said.

Since that initial success, the band has worked hard to improve. It recently joined the bluegrass festival circuit, traveling many summer weekends.

A delicate mix of old and new

Holloway said the Green Mountaineers have been talking about incorporating more original music into the mix.

"For us to really make a mark, we have to do original music - and there is a fine line," said Holloway, former host of the KRVM-FM radio show "Miles of Bluegrass."

"There are people who will not, especially in this genre, come and see a band if they don't see any songs they are familiar with."

The traditionalists should be satisfied with this recording. The band, which fans affectionately call the Green Mountain Boys, does renditions of "My Rose of Old Kentucky," "Country Blues" and "Unwanted Love."

Dunbar and Lynn worked up a bluegrass arrangement for the traditional "Flora - Lilly of the West," made famous by Joan Baez but not ordinarily done as a bluegrass tune.

"(We want to) strike a balance," said Holloway, president of the Oregon Bluegrass Association from 1997 and 2003. You do "covers of the masters, and you have to intersperse some homemade songs."

Rhythm guitarist Berck, who sings that "high lonesome" tenor sound essential to traditional bluegrass, said when he moved to Eugene 10 years ago, he was still a swing musician.

"I wasn't a big fan of bluegrass when I moved down here," said Berck, 55. You think of `Hee Haw' and corny jokes."

Berck and his ex-wife became bluegrass fans together after he learned more about its history. He realized he had sold the genre short.

"There's a huge following for bluegrass out here. I was really surprised," he said. "I love bluegrass music. It is real and all acoustic.

"The band has this magic to it. It was just this perfect timing that all of us were available.

"It wouldn't be Green Mountain with one of us missing."

Concert preview

Green Mountain Bluegrass Band

What: CD release party for "Live at Sprout City Studios"

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Where: Sam Bond's, 407 Blair Blvd.

Admission: $7

On the Web: Listen to samples at rgweb.registerguard.com/ticketfiles