Shenandoah

Formed in the mid-1980s in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Shenandoah belongs to the wave of Southern U.S. country music, combining Marty Raybon's lead vocals, Mike McGuire's drumming and a guitar section marked by Southern rock. The band developed a sound in which neotraditional country blends with gospel-like harmonies and narrative ballads centered on small-town stories, a formula that helped it quickly establish itself on the Nashville scene. Their debut studio album, simply titled Shenandoah (1987), was followed by The Road Not Taken (1988) and Extra Mile (1990), which placed the band in a style that was both melodic and direct, alternating mid-tempo tracks with more acoustic numbers. Shenandoah then released Long Time Comin' (1992) and Under the Kudzu (1993), before taking a more contemporary turn with In the Vicinity of the Heart (1994), notable for a duet with Alison Krauss. After several lineup changes and periods of inactivity around the turn of the 2000s, Shenandoah returned to the studio with the country-gospel‑oriented Good News Travels Fast (2016), then Every Road (2020), built around collaborations with younger country artists while retaining the narrative and vocal focus that has characterized the band since its beginnings.