Geoff Buell puts out EP with songs written by his hit-writing mother

Geoff Buell never thought about making a bluegrass record, but sometimes life has a funny way of working out. Buell recorded a 6-song EP entitled “It Takes Money”, with the first single “Outrun The Wind” released on Friday, Feb. 21, with five of the six songs co-written by his mother.

Initially, Buell set out to simply demo a few songs for his mother to pitch, but fate led him to a few extra. Just days before the recording session, and scrambling to pick songs the Buell’s made a trip to a co-writers house to pick up a song that was on a cassette tape, it was there that the co-writers played Geoff a few other songs that he liked which gave him enough songs for his project.

When producer Randy Kohrs was finished mixing the tracks, he suggested Buell put the songs out himself.

“That was something I hadn’t thought about because I’m a country singer, but I’ve always described bluegrass as, ‘Countrier than country,’ so why not,” Buell said.

An avid dobro player himself and the child of an award-winning bluegrass songwriter, that’s exactly what he’s done.

“I remember as a kid mom would come home with tapes she’d demoed and my sister and I would put them in the deck of the car and ride around town listening to my mom’s songs,” he said. “It’s so special to me to be able to sing her stuff on this record.”

Buell had help from the beginning in the process from some of the top talent in the bluegrass industry, including his mom. Kohrs won a Grammy for his work with Jim Lauderdale, which led Buell to be a little more hands-off in the process.

“As an artist you’re always hearing something you think you can do better,” Buell said. “But I told Randy that I was going to trust him in this project. I’ve never done bluegrass before, and he’s a legend. What else was I going to do?”

This record is a comeback story for Buell’s mother, who is more than two decades removed from her biggest musical accomplishment of IBMA’s Song of the Year in 1998.

“My mom and I have always talked about this day, and to see it finally arrive is a dream come true,” Buell said.