Darin & Brooke Aldridge at the 2025 Earl Scruggs Music Festival
In the four years that Scruggs Fest has been on the scene, one thing has been constant: the Sunday Morning Gospel set from Darin & Brooke Aldridge. Each year on Sunday morning, the Foggy Mountain Stage comes alive with the sounds of traditional bluegrass gospel, classic Darin & Brooke numbers, and songs from mountain church houses. Sunday afternoon, the couple took a few minutes to discuss how important this set is to them.
Darin “We’ve played here every year on various stages, and we’ve played the gospel show every year. We always want to include our gospel music, and we want to keep the gospel brunch a tradition. Being a great festival here in Western North Carolina, just like MerleFest is, we loved that when we were first talking about doing the gospel set, it reminded us of the way Doc Watson carried on that tradition and had Sunday morning at MerelFest. We wanted to do the same thing here at the Earl Scruggs Festival.”
Brooke “Gospel music is really the foundation of who we are and where we come from. It’s what we’ve always loved, so we try to include it in all of our sets. It was really special to be back here at the festival this year, always welcoming Earl back home, making sure we are representing what he would’ve loved. In the small, rural towns where we both grew up, just like Earl, life has always been centered around church — a place of gathering, where people cared for one another and lifted each other up. And when you think about it, that’s not so different from a festival or music venue — it’s all about people coming together, sharing in something bigger than themselves, and leaving a little more inspired than when they arrived. That’s the spirit Earl carried with him, and it’s the spirit we hope to honor every time we play.”
Then, Darin elaborated on a story he shared during their set about some time he spent picking with Earl himself. He mentioned that he had visited Earl’s home when he was around fifteen years old, and during that visit, Earl shared stories about how he used to work up gospel songs as instrumentals to play during the stage show. Darin got to play some of those songs with him, and he also sang Earl’s favorite hymn, Drifting Too Far From the Shore, for him.
Darin “That evening we got to spend with him was really special. There was no one there except for me and my friend, Dr. Bobby Jones, at Earl’s home in Madison. We ate dinner with him and Lousie, just the four of us, and then we went out to the front room and talked and picked over songs. He told me those stories about playing a lot of the instrumentals. Drifting Too Far From the Shore was one of his favorites. I jammed with him at his brother Horace’s house in Boiling Springs several times also. Earl was just one of the guys; he liked to sit around and pick those old songs with his brother and his friends. He was just a great banjo player and human being.”
Their Sunday morning set featured a couple new gospel songs that they’ve been working into their live shows, and plan on recording on a new, all-gospel project.
Brooke “We haven’t done an all gospel album since our very first record we released back in 2008, so this is going to be really special. We’ve included some really special guests on it, and were able to schedule a day for some of our family to be featured on it. So, it’s going to be an album that truly hits close to home, and embodies what we have always been about.”
Darin “We’ve always had people ask us when we’re going to do another gospel record, and it’s been so long since we put that first one out. We always have two or three gospel songs on each record, so we decided to go ahead and do another all gospel project.”
Fans can look forward to more Scruggs Fest Sunday morning gospel shows from Darin & Brooke, and should keep an eye out for an all gospel project set for next year.
