SHERMAN LEE DILLON & DENNIS CASH

 

While maintaining their long standing solo careers, Sherman Lee Dillon and Dennis Cash will be working together as a duo for select dates in the future. The pair, who met on a Rolling Roots Revue tour last year, made their initial appearance as a duo on “Good Morning Fayetteville” with Goldy and Jim on WFNC radio on March 6, 2015.  Dillon and Cash have made five informal videos of their music together. These can be seen on YouTube and on http://shermanleedillon.com/home-page/videos/ and on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgbmH8frU8UGFvxwtnItg1Q.  The two work remarkably well together given that they come from different parts of the folk and roots music world. Now a resident of Cary, NC, Dillon, Mississippi’s Blues Ambassador, performs central Mississippi blues from the Gulf Coast to Ontario, and also proves an excellent old-time musician. Cash, an excellent songwriter living in Autryville, NC, led the bluegrass gospel ensemble Carolina Sonshine and has established himself as a premier interpreter of Carter Family songs.

 

North Carolina Bluegrass, Gospel, Folk and Old Time music song man, Cash is a native of Lynchburg, VA. He picked up his Dad's old arch top guitar around age 12. Using a mail order song book with a chord chart, he taught himself to play guitar. In his early twenties, Dennis took his first paying job as a musician as lead guitar player for a local country band. His musical endeavors crossed many genres, but he kept returning to the music he grew up with: the roots music of the Carter Family; traditional bluegrass, country, and the gospel. After arriving in North Carolina, Dennis and Wayne Ratley launched Carolina Sonshine in 1997. The band toured from Maine to Florida and as far west as Missouri and in Canada. Encouraged by friend and mentor Bill Clifton, Cash recorded Sing Me A Carter Family Song, which contains his interpretations of many fine songs introduced by the Carter Family. The title cut was written for the project by Tom T. and the late Dixie Hall. In August, 2014, Cash was inducted into America's Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame.

 

Genuine, authentic, down home and personal with songs and stories that are pure Americana, Sherman Lee Dillon is the real deal from central Mississippi. At the age of 16 Sherman left home outside Jackson and has been playing music professionally ever since. While many of his friends and partners went to Memphis, Nashville, New York, L.A., or hooked up with big names, Sherman took a less sensational but probably more rewarding road. Deciding to be a regional performer has actually worked quite well. Rufus Thomas, King Floyd, William Bell, McKinnley Mitchell, Sam Myers, J.T. Watkins (to mention a few) have called Sherman Lee to play with them when they were in the area. Sherman has performed in various configurations on shows with such notables as B.B. King, Johnny Winter, Koko Taylor, Little Milton and Bobby Rush. When Sandy Davis, Casting Director for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, came to Jackson she used him as a voice model, personal musical coach to Tim Blake Nelson (Delmar), and consulted him almost daily throughout their Mississippi filming. Sherman Lee represented the state of Mississippi as a finalist in the 2010 International Blues Challenge in Memphis. For more about Sherman Lee Dillon, see www.shermanleedillon.com.

 

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