John Lawless is the President of AcuTab Publications. The notes and comments on the songs are his.

Sometimes really good ideas are hatched and nurtured over the course of days or weeks of meetings and consultations, or many intense hours of quiet contemplation. Other times, they just spring up unannounced and unexpected. The idea for this recording came in a flash, with the concept almost fully formed right from the start.

Of course, it is not much of a stretch to conceive of throwing some of the most notable musicians in bluegrass music together in the studio and rolling the tape. Among them, this bunch can boast of more than 65 awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association, close to a dozen Grammies and at least a couple of Country Music Association Awards. Within the realm of bluegrass music, these guys are the superstars! Having them all together on a single project is an unprecedented event and a big part of the reason why the release of this CD has been met with such enthusiasm and anticipation.

AcuTab's main business has been publishing books of instrumental transcriptions from the playing of top bluegrass artists. The idea for the Knee Deep project was to feature as many of these artists as possible, and combine them in settings that might be interesting or unexpected. We wanted to include a mix of material, blending new songs with classics, instrumentals with vocals and full group presentations with solo and duet settings. Given the large number of artists involved I was delighted that almost everyone in the AcuTab catalog was able to be included. Only schedule and technical conflicts kept us from 100% participation.

I can't possibly describe how much of a debt of gratitude I owe to all these Acutab artists, not only for allowing us to publish their music in book form, but also for their willingness to take part in this recording. When I first approached them about doing the album I had no details, no songs and no recording budget - and they all jumped aboard right away. Thanks guys!

Since our AcuTab books feature transcriptions of instrumental music it was clear that some guest vocalists would need to be enlisted. I could hardly have hoped for better than Ronnie Bowman, Alan O'Bryant, Dan Tyminski and Mark Newton and I am especially glad that we got Tim Stafford to sing one as well. We also had to come up with bass and fiddle since those instruments are not represented in our catalog as yet. Barry Bales and Ron Stewart are surely among my very favorite players and getting them to commit was a giant boost to the project. When Barry was unable to make the second set of sessions, Tim suggested that Jason Moore would do a bang up job for us, and that he did.

A huge portion of the credit for the artistic success of this project belongs to producer Tim Stafford. He was intimately involved in every aspect of the recording, including song choices, the "casting" of the individual cuts and the arrangements of the various pieces. He and Brent Truitt also did the final mixes. In truth, I think that Tim's willingness to tackle this project was a big part of the reason that Rebel was up for taking it on.

This recording has been a labor of love in the truest sense of the words. Having the opportunity to watch these gifted artists at work and seeing the project evolve from the germ of an idea to a finished product has been both fascinating and humbling. I think there is some superb music here which will appeal to anyone with a taste for bluegrass, old time or acoustic music.

I welcome everyone's comments about the project. Enjoy!