CrossPoint String Band (Shelbyville, TN)
is a Bluegrass Gospel family band. We’re all acoustic and try hard to fit the original bluegrass blueprint, with our own flavorings and flare.
I’m Glenn Kosiorek, and I founded, lead, and schedule the band. I play the banjo, mandolin and mandola. I masterfully (ha!) “MC” when we play, and have been described as a happy kind of guy. My wife Shelley plays the mandolin; and yes, she is the original “mandolin lady” in the band! Rick Vella plays the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and dobro, and is a soulful, heart touching songwriter with BMI. He is full of energy, drive and nuttiness. Sarah, our oldest daughter, is married to Rick, and she plays the upright bass and the fiddle and is the band technician. Sarah is so sweet and she has received several compliments on her sweet voice. Amanda, our youngest daughter, plays the mandolin, bass, guitar, fiddle and dobro. She’s also full of energy, has a great ear just like Rick and Sarah, and is a combination of sweet and feisty. She was singing before she could walk. In November 2008 Amanda got a new last name when she married Brandon Ladanye. We all sing lead or harmony depending on the need of the song. It is the joy of our life to pick, sing, travel and serve the Lord together as a family.
HOW WE GOT STARTED...
I remember so well hearing a young boy play a banjo in Ohio and how it went through me and pierced my heart! I got a little closer, and I said to myself, “I can do this!” Within a couple of weeks, I owned a banjo and an instructional video and with great toil started to unravel the bluegrass banjo mystery. I can still remember the painful first few weeks learning to play the banjo and the first few years of struggling. I can still hear the screams of my family begging me to stop all the noise, walking by me with sickening looks, as I persisted to learn with a broken heart because of my family’s disapproval. If that wasn’t bad enough, you have to hear the music to play it, so in came the first copies of Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, and the Stanley Brothers. My family really had a fit hearing constant, in-your-face Bluegrass music.
And then to my delight, it happened! The bug bit. My wife Shelley bought a mandolin, and my oldest daughter Sarah bought a fiddle! Before we knew it, a bunch of young people from our church were playing. Rick started playing the banjo while a teenager. My youngest daughter, Amanda, at 12 started playing the mandolin. We all received lessons from a good friend, Bob Puffer, who very ably gave us fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and dobro lessons. It seems like the lights were really turned on after that. We at the time had no idea that in a short while we’d get a name, “CrossPoint String Band,” buy a tiny motor home for our family to live in, traveling full time, living by faith, playing Bluegrass Gospel Music! It happened so fast it made our head spin and hurt our necks!
June 2009 begins our eighth year on the road full time. We’ve had more than 700 meetings, recorded eleven CD’s and have just finished recording our 12th, traveled more than 350,000 miles playing at churches, festivals, RV parks, and senior centers. We’ve had a car, a van, a trailer, instruments, a computer, a skateboard, a camera, and a lot of food given to us by God’s people all over the country. We fell into a septic tank with our motor home, blew tires, and had break downs, slept in some strange places, driven half through the night more than once and have met the greatest pastors and people in the world who have loved us and encouraged us!
WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT WHERE WE’VE BEEN AND WHERE WE’RE GOING...
Our music has been given airplay on local/regional stations across the country, several national and international programs as well as syndicated programs. Also with 24/7 I’net streaming we have truly been heard around the world. We’ve had several broadcasters request CDs and DVDs/Videos for featuring our band on their stations. We’ve had radio and TV programmers interview us for future broadcast, and we’ve played “live” on a few outlets.
We have hosted four of our own festivals in mid TN--Lewisburg (April ’06 and April ’07), and also our own Annual Bluegrass Gospel Festival (May 08 and May 09) in our home base, Shelbyville, TN, “The Walking Horse Capital of the World.” We want to go as far as we can as a band, but even though we live an hour away from Nashville and enjoy all its benefits to our music, we never came here with the intention of “making it big in Nashville.” We want to keep on taking big steps to the next levels, but want to enjoy the ride while keeping the Lord first.
Some have asked where we get our songs. Rick, has written several songs that we sing and have recorded. The rest of our songs come from various sources and are always powerful and do something to our hearts and have found out they do something for the hearts of others. They’re songs about Heaven, the blood of Christ, His Resurrection, the blessings of God and the family. CrossPoint String Band’s available CD’s are: “Now I Know,” A New Song,” “Another Bluegrass Christmas,” “Travelin’ On,” “End of the Row” and “In The Hollow.”
WE’RE REALLY EXCITED ABOUT OUR NEW PROJECT...
“In The Hollow,” CD, which has three songs that I wrote: (#3)“In The Hollow,” (#6)“The Good Shepherd,” & (#7)“The Bread”(which I wrote about my Ma, Jennie Kosiorek).
This CD and the title song is the life song of our band and ministry. We’ve seen some pretty hollers across the country, but nothing compares to the child of God standing in the hollow of God’s hand. This title song that I wrote going down the road, one minute with bright sun, the next minute with pouring down rain says it all:
It’s hard to keep on going, and it’s hard to understand.
Then we realize we’re in the hollow of His hand.. .
The storm is passed, the sun is bright.
We made it one more time; the Land’s in sight
We feel His touch; the worst is far behind.. .
It’s all because we’re standing in the hollow of His hand!
This song is powerful to us with all we’ve been through. We pray it will lift you up, as high as God’s hand!
WE HOPE TO MEET YOU...
and hope you hear us, whether on radio, CD, TV, or in person. As we’ve been in front of thousands, it’s still hard to believe that God took a backwards, shy country boy, gave him a great wife and family, put picks on our fingers, and strings in our hands, fast-moving tires under our feet, and has given us the ride of our lives playing Bluegrass Gospel music. It would be great to be picking and singing, close our eyes, then open them up and find ourselves picking and singing on the shores of Heaven! Don’t miss it! You get there by the way of the Cross alone. We’ll be looking for you!
Glenn Kosiorek & CrossPoint String Band
585.356.2280
crosspointGK@yahoo.com
040609
Listen to a sampling of our music online, and please check out our calendar/schedule @ www.crosspointstringband.org so you can stop by and visit with us when we are in your area! We also post our schedule in the Personal Appearance column in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine each month.