MUMFORD & SONS:
SIGH ON THE PRIZE

The first in a series of Grammy spotlights on this year’s leading contenders by Lenny Beer and Roy Trakin.

A west London group of folk-rockers, playing largely acoustic Irish music, may well be the best band in the world at the moment…and most of their potential Boomer fan base, who will relate immediately and emotionally to the rebirth of music of their youth, has yet to hear them.

Mumford & Sons are the next big breakout from Daniel Glass’ Glassnote Records label, following in the success of the Grammy-winning French band Phoenix. The upcoming Grammy nominations and next year’s telecast should provide the impetus necessary to explode this worthy band into Norah Jones sales and awareness territory by reaching the adult audience mostly still unaware of their existence.

Their debut U.S. album, Sigh No More, has been a fixture on the HITS’ Top 50 sales chart for eight months, now over 315k and moving upwards of 20k a week. In addition, the digital release has been ensconced in the Top 10, with 55% of sales registered as downloads, a sign the album has not even fully penetrated the physical marketplace. Wal-Mart recently agreed to carry the album despite the presence of a common four-letter profanity in the hit single, “Little Lion Man,” with its catchy refrain about a ruptured romance, “I really fucked it up this time.”

An avid N.Y. Marathon runner, Glass has applied his long-term artist development plans to a promising roster that includes, aside from Mumford and Phoenix, The Temper Trap and Two-Door Cinema Club.

With Mumford & Sons’ momentum increasing just as Grammy ballots are going out to voters, the band seems primed for potential nominations not just in the highly competitive Best New Artist category, but also in the Contemporary Folk, Rock and maybe even Best Album races.

The rise of Mumford & Sons is an affirmation of the simple credo, “It’s the music-- especially the live show—stupid.” This is a band that, once you see them live, the reaction is immediate, evoking the special artist-audience relationships found at a U2 or Bruce Springsteen show, both of whom are apt comparisons for the fervor generated by a Mumford & Sons concert. In less than 18 months in L.A., the band went from the 100-seat Hotel Café to the Troubadour, the Music Box and finally, to headlining the 3,700-capacity Palladium earlier this month.

Like he did with Phoenix, Glass saw in Mumford & Sons a band boasting a growing following internationally in the U.K. and Australia, without a U.S. distribution deal, and quickly pounced.

Formed in December, 2007, by four West London friends—lead singer Marcus Mumford, Country Winston, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane—their original goal was to “make music that matters, without taking themselves seriously… [delivered] with the passion and pride of an old-fashioned, much-cherished, family business.”

The band toured extensively through 2008, releasing a series of EPs over the next two years, culminating in its full-length debut, Sigh No More, on Oct. 5, 2009, on Island in the U.K., Dew Process in Australia and New Zealand and Glassnote in the U.S. The album went to #1 in Ireland and Australia (where it is double-platinum), and #3 in the U.K. and the Netherlands, with “Little Lion Man” going to #3 in the Aussie charts.

The U.S. story continues to build, with “The Cave,” which many believe is the best song on the album, next up for Alternative radio following the #1 success of “Little Lion Man.” Sales continue to remain steady and strong, and if the band garners some expected Grammy noms, the sky is the limit…especially if Ken Ehrlich’s Grammy TV team can create that “magic moment” which is their specialty.