The Del McCoury Band

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Vince Gill says it simply, and maybe best: "I'd rather hear Del McCoury sing - Are You Teasing Me - than just about anything." For fifty years, Del's music has defined authenticity for hard core bluegrass fans-count Gill among them-as well as a growing number of fans among those only vaguely familiar with the genre. And while the box set Celebrating 50 Years of Del McCoury, like its distilled companion, By Request-both in stores on May 12th-provides an opportunity to look back on a unique legacy, it's also one that Del McCoury's rolling past with a wave and a grin and some of the best music he's ever made.

"It gives hope to everybody-fifty years is a long time to be playing music in any field," says another fan, Elvis Costello. “But to keep the purity that you need to do this kind of music, and the drive and the energy "…takes a special kind of guy." And indeed, McCoury is something special, a living link to the days when bluegrass was made only in hillbilly honkytonks, schoolhouse shows and on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, yet also a commandingly vital presence today, from prime time and late night talk show TV to music festivals where audiences number in the hundreds of thousands. "Here's a guy who has been playing for fifty years, and he's still experimenting-still looking to do things outside the box, to bring other kinds of music into bluegrass form," says Americana music icon Richard Thompson, who saw his "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" turned into a bluegrass standard when McCoury brought it into the fold. "I think that's the best bluegrass band, period. That's it."