• Shrink-wrapped

Conventional wisdom says that in the music business, once you achieve a certain threshold of success, caution should be your guide. You've come this far, you're told by everyone around you. Don't surprise your audience too much. But trepidation will not be part of Dierks Bentley's legacy. At every turn in his career, he's done his own thing, whether that meant touring with jam bands, playing rock venues or recording with bluegrass all-stars on platinum country albums. Now Dierks steps forward with his most artistically daring project yet - the all-acoustic Up On The Ridge - a powerful, beautiful album steeped in the bluegrass and roots music that moved Dierks Bentley to be a country musician in the first place.

"I fell in love with this kind of music the first time I walked into the Station Inn with a fake I.D. at 19 years old...these guys, who were my age, were playing their instruments so hard it knocked your head back," explains Bentley. "Without the whole bluegrass community taking me in, I would have had no place to start from. It is my foundation."

Dozens of talents have contributed in some way to this project. Besides the five co-written by Dierks himself, the songs come from such varied sources as Bob Dylan, Buddy and Julie Miller, U2 and Kris Kristofferson. Kristofferson participated on the project as a guest vocalist as well, along with a slate of today's best traditional country singers, including: Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Sonya Isaacs and Chris Stapleton of the Steeldrivers. Players on the project include: Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers, the Del McCoury Band, the legendary Sam Bush, dobro player Rob Ickes, guitarist Bryan Sutton, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and mandolinist Ronnie McCoury.

"This record's not a departure for me at all," says Dierks. "It's really just going back and reclaiming something I feel like I do have some ownership of, which is the acoustic music scene in Nashville."