Douglas returns "The Set"

The 11-track album consists of five new offerings and six revitalized songs from his catalogue.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is out today as the lead single from "The Set." This rendition of the Beatles' 1968 classic features The Jerry Douglas Band: Douglas (Dobro), Daniel Kimbro (bass), Christian Sedelmyer (fiddle) and Mike Seal (guitar).

"I love how easy it was to play the song," said Douglas, the 30x International Bluegrass Music Association Award recipient. "It just lays perfectly for the Dobro. It gives you all the latitude you need to play the whole song from end to end, in different octaves. That melody always got me, but I never tried to play it. And when I did, it was like, 'Wow! Why haven't I done this before?'"

Years ago, Douglas and the band worked up an instrumental version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," a song that Douglas said he'd known forever. When he performed it in London during a Transatlantic Sessions tour, Eric Clapton joined him onstage for a reunion. They had previously collaborated on a 2012 recording of R&B artist Chris Kenner's "Something You Got," with Clapton on vocals, that appeared on Douglas' "Traveler" (2012). The song reappears on "The Set," this time more lighthearted and uptempo with Douglas taking lead vocals.

Douglas also turned to his bandmates for material, including Seal's "Renee," Sedelmyer's "Deacon Waltz," and Kimbro's "Loyston." The four musicians collaborated on "The Fifth Season," a concerto commissioned by the FreshGrass Foundation. Two instrumentals - "Pushed Too Far" and "Sir Aly B," – also are on the new release.

"When people leave," said DOUGLAS, "they have a certain song in their head. And we always play 'Sir Aly B' last as the final encore. That's the last thing people hear, so I wanted that to be there, too."

"I'm proud of it. I've left no stone unturned," said Douglas. "I've been producing records for a long time, so I really, really put on that hat for this record. Usually, I like instrumentalists to have free rein in whatever they do. It's the way they speak. If anybody had an idea, we chased it down to the end. I feel like it's really finished. I'm really happy with the outcome of this whole experience."

The track list is:
"Gone to Fortingall"
"Renee"
"What Might Have Been" featuring Aoife O'Donovan
"From Ankara to Ismir"
"Something You Got"
"Deacon Waltz"
"The Fifth Season"
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
"Loyston"
"Pushed Too Far"
"Sir Aly B"

Douglas will tour throughout the summer and fall, including the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Montana Folk Festival in July, Green Mountain Bluegrass & Roots Festival in August, and Bourbon & Beyond and The Earl Scruggs Music Festival in September.