Special Consensus – 50th Anniversary Tour

Greg Cahill
Chicago born and bred, Greg Cahill has been playing bluegrass banjo since the early 1970s. He co-founded The Special Consensus in Chicago in 1975 and has continued to tour nationally and internationally with the band ever since. In 1984, he created the Traditional American Music (TAM) Program to introduce students of all ages to bluegrass music. He has appeared on all 21 of The Special Consensus recordings, on numerous recordings by other artists and on many national television and radio commercial jingles. Greg has also released three recordings: Lone Star (1980, with guests Jethro Burns and Byron Berline); Blue Skies (1992, with Chicago mandolinist Don Stiernberg); and Night Skies (1998, with Don Stiernberg and guests Sam Bush, Glen Duncan and Tom Boyd). He has also recorded and toured European countries with the ChowDogs (Greg and Slavek Hanzlik, Dallas Wayne and Ollie O’Shea). Greg has released four banjo instructional DVDs and three banjo tablature books and he teaches banjo at festival workshops and music camps nationally and internationally. He is a banjo instructor at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and has been an adjunct faculty member of the music department (teaching banjo) at Columbia College in Chicago. He served on the Nashville-based International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Board of Directors from 1998-2010 (Board Chair/President 2006-2010), became a Kentucky Colonel in 2010 and was awarded the prestigious IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011. Greg was also appointed to the Board of Directors of the Nashville-based Foundation for Bluegrass Music in 2007, elected President of the organization in 2011 and rotated off that board in 2012. The 2012 Compass Records band recording Scratch Gravel Road was GRAMMY-nominated for Best Bluegrass Album; the 2014 Compass Records band release Country Boy: A Bluegrass Tribute To John Denver received two IBMA awards; the 2016 Compass Records band recording Long I Ride received an IBMA award and the 2018 Compass Records recording Rivers And Roads received two IBMA awards (one for Album of the Year) and a GRAMMY nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. Greg served on the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter Board of Directors 2018-2020 and he was inducted into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) Hall of Greats in Nashville, TN in 2020. Greg appears on the 2020 Special C Compass Records release Chicago Barn Dance, the 20th band recording that received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year Award. He also appears on the 2023 Compass Records release Great Blue North, the 21st Special C recording that features guest appearances by many Canadian musician friends of the band.

Dan Eubanks
Dan Eubanks grew up in Crystal City and St. Louis, Missouri, and his grandparents began taking him to bluegrass festivals at a very young age in the 1970s. He began playing music on drums, then banjo and guitar, and eventually electric bass at age 12. Dan played in country and rock bands throughout high school and attended college on a music scholarship. His study of jazz bass playing eventually led him to the upright bass and a very diverse musical education that included study of nearly all styles of American music and procurement of a Master’s degree in Jazz Studies from Webster University in St. Louis. In 2003, after many years of teaching at several St. Louis-area colleges and universities as an adjunct professor, Dan’s desire to get back to his bluegrass and country roots prompted his move to Nashville. He spent nearly 20 years in Nashville teaching, performing with various bands, working as a studio session musician and appearing on the television show “Nashville” several times as a side musician in bands that support main characters. Dan joined Special Consensus in 2013 and made his first band recording appearance on the 2014 Compass Records band recording Country Boy: A Bluegrass Tribute To John Denver that received two International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards. He also appeared on the 2016 Compass Records band recording Long I Ride, which also received an IBMA award, and on the 2018 Compass Records band recording Rivers And Roads that received two IBMA awards (one for Album of the Year) and a GRAMMY nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. Dan released a solo recording titled Look What The City’s Done in March 2019 and he appears on the 2020 Special C Compass Records release Chicago Barn Dance, which received the 2020 IBMA Song of the Year Award. Dan also appears on the 2023 Compass Records release Great Blue North, the 21st Special C recording that features guest appearances by many Canadian musician friends of the band. Dan moved back to his hometown of St. Louis in the summer of 2023 and continues to teach remotely at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, TN.

Greg Blake
Greg Blake was born and raised in the hills of West Virginia but he has spent most of his life living and working in Kansas City – on both sides of the state line. After graduating from high school in WestVirginia, Greg attended bible college in Overland Park, Kansas where he met his wife. They both pursued further education, careers, and raised a family for 25 years in Kansas before moving to Colorado in 2007. While in Kansas, he was a member of the Bluegrass Missourians for nearly 15 years. During that time, the band received multiple awards from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA), and he received two nominations for SPBGMA’s Traditional Male Vocalist of the Year and nine nominations for SPBGMA Guitarist of the Year. By the time Greg moved back to Kansas City, KS in 2017, he had received five consecutive SPBGMA Guitarist of the Year awards, a Kansas State Flatpicking championship and a nomination for the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Male Vocalist of the Year Award. A highlight in 2015 was a debut solo album that was named by several sources among the Top Ten albums of the year. Greg has also toured with the Greg Blake Band and, most recently, with Jeff Scroggins and Colorado. In March, 2021 Greg officially became the Special Consensus guitar player and also released a solo recording titled People, Places and Songs on the Nashville-based Turnberry Records label. Greg was nominated for the IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year Award in 2022 and 2023 and he appears on the 2023 Compass Records release Great Blue North, the 21st Special C recording that features guest appearances by many Canadian musician friends of the band. Greg won the 2023 IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year Award.

Brian McCarty
Brian McCarty grew up in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The son of a prolific gospel songwriter and singer, he was immersed in the world of music from birth. He first performed with his mother’s gospel band at the age of 7 and soon began competing as a vocalist in regional gospel music conventions. His love of traditional American music began when a family member handed him a mandolin at age 13. Brian soon added banjo and guitar to his instrumental prowess and won the 2005 International Bluegrass Artist of the Year award in the Branson-based Country Gospel Music Association. He has played with numerous bands in the Kansas City area over the past two decades, including 15 years as mandolinist for the Bluegrass Missourians. Brian appeared on four recordings with that band and on “The View from Home,” a recording with Greg Blake and Hometown in 2022. For the last two years he has been mandolinist for The Matchsellers, a Kansas City-based band with whom he appeared on two recordings in 2022 and 2024. Brian currently offers mandolin lessons in the Kansas City area and occasionally performs old “brother duets” with banjo player Todd Davis, billed as Davis and McCarty. He resides in Kansas City with his wife Mandy and their two daughters and he joined Special C as mandolin player and lead and harmony singer in October 2024.