It's the third year we hand over the church to Colby T. Helms for a Christmastime Homestead Jam and this line-up is on fire! Colby and The Virginia Creepers will be joined by a bevy of white hot musicians this year including GRAMMY award winning fiddler Jason Carter, known for his work with Del McCoury Band and the Travelin' McCourys. GRAMMY award winning songwriter and musician Graham Sharp, banjo player (and Steve Martin's favorite bajo picker) for Steep Canyon Rangers. Homestead regular Joshua Gooding, currently on tour with Jason Carter Band and rapid-fire guitar player Kyser George, co-founder of rising bluegrass band Shadowgrass. That is one SIZZLIN' ticket!

With his second album, One for the Losers, Colby T. Helms tells their stories.

Raised in the Blue Ridge foothills of Southwest Virginia, Helms launched his career as a teenager, writing raw and ragged songs that drew from the people, places, stories, and struggles that shaped him. If his debut album chronicled his own experience, then One for the Losers widens the frame by looking outward. Across a dozen tracks, Helms shines a light on the overlooked and misunderstood characters who've crossed his path, from troubled friends and fallen mentors to moonshiners, immigrants, and working-class Virginians trying to survive in a world that threatens to leave them behind.

"This is a record for people who don’t feel like they have a voice," he says, speaking with a southern drawl colored not only by his Appalachian roots, but by the years he's spent singing at folk festivals, fiddlers' conventions, campgrounds, and dive bars, too. "I wrote my first album while I was still in high school, then I spent a few years on the road, playing those songs every night. One for the Losers delves into what it's like to be a road musician, as well as the characters and challenges you encounter along the way — and some of the ones waiting for you back home, too."

Country. Bluegrass. Folk. Helms' interpretation of American mountain music bears the fingerprints of them all. Largely recorded in Nashville with producer David "Ferg" Ferguson, the album is as diverse as its influences, balancing electric full-band performances with intimate, stripped-back recordings that place Helms' storytelling front and center. For Helms, that balance feels like an extension of a childhood spent on the borderlines, embracing the grey areas between social groups.

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In Lloyd, Kentucky, on U.S. 23, there's a sign on the Country Music Highway dedicated to renowned fiddler Jason Carter. It was placed there because of his other accomplishments—the Grammy awards, the worldwide tours, and the many other accolades he's earned through his music. But for Carter, joining the legendary names honored on that stretch of highway just might mean the most. "There's a certain sound that's up there that you just don't hear anywhere else," he says. "I think that played a big part in how I sound today."

True to those Kentucky roots, Carter continues to pour all he has back into bluegrass. For thirty years, he has been the fiddle player for the Del McCoury Band—the most awarded group in bluegrass history. He's won three Grammy awards, including 2018's "Best Bluegrass Album" with the Travelin' McCourys, of which he is a founding member. And he's taken home five IBMAs for "Fiddle Player of the Year," a staggering number that isn't quite so crazy once you realize just how many bluegrass greats have turned to Carter for collaboration.

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Graham Sharp is a Grammy award-winning songwriter, banjo player, singer and guitarist with Steep Canyon Rangers. How Did We Do It, released April 2025, is his second solo album.

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Joshua Gooding is a mandolin player living in Northeast Tennessee. Joshua grew up in California as the son of Dave Gooding, himself a bluegrass musician and a member of the Board of Directors of the California Bluegrass Association.

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Kyser George is an acclaimed bluegrass musician and founding member of progressive bluegrass band Shadowgrass. Amoung many accolades, he was honored with the IMBA Momentum Award for Instrumentalist of the Year (2025).

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