Grascals Win Big at Bluegrass Awards! Read more...

While most of our staff at Mayberry's Finest has been busy in the kitchen preparing recipes and getting our foods ready for the shelves at your local grocery store, we've had a team scouring the countryside and beating the bushes to find just the right folks to help us spread the word about our packaged foods.

We received a hot tip that there was a hearty eatin' bunch up in the hills who were also rumored to have lived in a cave with Ernest T. Bass before that raccoon and possum moved in with him. We sent our search team up there-across the Robert E. Lee Natural Bridge and even past the Darlings' cabin-to see what these guys were all about.

Our search party heard soft echoes of beautiful music coming from way down in a holler not too far from Old Man Kelsey's Crick. The team came over a ridge and spied six fellas out standing in a bluegrass field. We came to find out that they call themselves The Grascals. We knew we had found our match, the ideal spokes-group for Mayberry's Finest.

We eventually learned that each Grascal also had a name. Terry Eldredge and Jamie Johnson sing lead and harmony vocals and play guitar. Aaron McDaris picks banjo, Jimmy Mattingly is on fiddle, Danny Roberts plays the mandolin and Terry Smith plays bass and sings harmony vocals.

"We're thrilled to have an association with this super-talented group," said Marcela Gómez, president of Diversity Brands, maker of Mayberry's Finest.

"We're going to have a lot of fun promoting our foods and Grascals music together. It's a wonderful partnership."

Most of The Grascals were too busy sampling Mayberry's Finest products to say much. (They've long known that "eatin' speaks louder than words.") But we believe Terry Eldredge was overheard to say, "More Peach Cobbler Muffins, please." That's all we needed to hear. It was music to our ears.

We've also discovered that the group is pretty well known outside the holler where we found them. It turns out that they're the reigning Entertainers of the Year for the International Bluegrass Music Association, and a year earlier they won IBMA awards for Emerging Artist of the Year and Song of the Year. Both of their albums were nominated for Grammy Awards.

And the group members themselves have a deep affection for Mayberry-so much so that they were moved to write our Mayberry's Finest jingle. We think it's really catchy. You can hear it on our Web site at www.mayberrysfinest.com. We hope you'll also be hearing it on the radio and maybe even live at a Grascals performance. We like The Grascals so much that we're sponsoring their national tour. We want as many folks as possible to see them and enjoy their music. And if you're out by Checkpoint Chickie and see a brand new tour bus coming down the road with Mayberry's Finest and Grascals artwork covering it, just follow that bus to wherever it's going and you're sure to find delicious food and fantastic bluegrass music.