Chris Scruggs and The Stone Five with Kenny Vaughan — Skinny Dennis residency.
We have done a Feature on Chris Scruggs before, which you can read here Chris Scruggs, Music City’s most versatile traditionalist but it is worth bring Chris back to the top of the Feature section with his recent residency being set at Nashville’s Skinny Dennis venue. We missed him since his stopped his shows at The Local and this is an opportunity to catch one of Nashville’s most entertaining shows just by stopping by.
Chris Scruggs grew up around country music in a way most people don’t — Earl Scruggs was his grandfather, Gail Davies is his mom — but what makes him interesting is what he’s done with it. He joined BR549 at 19, learned straight from players like Charlie Louvin, Harold Bradley, and Carl Smith, and became one of those musicians everyone in Nashville quietly relies on. Guitar, steel, bass, mandolin, fiddle, drums — he plays all of it, and he plays it like someone who’s put in the hours. When Marty Stuart needed another Superlative, he called Chris. That tells you plenty.
Since 2012, he’s kept a steady residency somewhere in town. For years it was The Local (back when it was still The Country), and now it’s Skinny Dennis. The next shows are May 21, May 28, and June 7. He’ll draw you in with his guitar and vocals while Kenny Vaughan, Billy Contreras, Caleb Boese, David Tanner, Jared Manzo, and Grace van’t Hof fill out the band. It’s not a throwback act — it’s just country music played by people who genuinely love doing it.
He also hosts Friends and Neighbors with Chris Scruggs on 650 WSM every Friday night after the Opry — fifteen minutes of live radio that feels like the kind of thing Nashville used to do without thinking. And if you’ve never heard his 2009 solo record Anthem, it’s worth tracking down. Eleven of the twelve songs are his, and it shows.
May 21 · May 28 · June 7 — Skinny Dennis, 2635 Gallatin Pike, East Nashville, 9:00 PM. Find him at chrisscruggs.com.
A curated pick by Planet Mars Music Editorial Staff and crafted with the help of AI