Special Consensus

bluegrass

Special Consensus is a Chicago bluegrass band founded in 1975 by banjo player Greg Cahill, who remains its only constant member. Cahill started the group after jamming with other musicians at the University of Chicago Folk Festival in 1973; the name draws on Carlos Castaneda's writing about a state in which spiritual and physical good things come together, joined to the idea of players reaching a consensus onstage. Roughly fifty years of turnover have carried the band through some eighteen guitarists, eighteen mandolinists, twelve bassists and two fiddlers, and it has functioned as a proving ground for younger players who go on to lead their own groups. The 2025 lineup is Cahill on banjo, Greg Blake on guitar and lead vocals, Brian McCarty on mandolin and vocals, and Nico Humby on bass and vocals; Blake was named IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 2023 and again in 2025. The band has issued 22 recordings and earned two Grammy nominations for Best Bluegrass Album, for Scratch Gravel Road in 2012 and Rivers and Roads in 2018, the latter also taking the IBMA Album of the Year award. Its eight IBMA awards include Song of the Year in 2020 for Chicago Barn Dance, Collaborative Recording of the Year in 2023 for Alberta Bound and Video of the Year in 2024 for the same song. Been All Around This World, released on Compass Records in June 2025, marks the band's fiftieth anniversary. Alongside touring, Cahill has run the Traditional American Music program since 1984, an in-school residency he estimates has reached about a million children.

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