Bob Perilla’s Big Hillbilly Bluegrass, a musical ensemble based in Washington, DC, has been chosen by the U.S. State Department for a month-long tour to five African countries as musical and cultural ambassadors. The band—Bob Perilla (guitar), Ira Gitlin (banjo), Tad Marks (fiddle), Merl Johnson (mandolin), and Mike Marceau (bass)—will visit Mauritania, Togo, Benin, the Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic from December 2009 through January 2010. All the members of the group, which has played weekly at Madam’s Organ in Washington, DC, since 1994, live in the Washington area. Big Hillbilly Bluegrass has performed regularly in local venues, as well as at national events. 

Big Hillbilly Bluegrass has toured five times in as many years for the State Department. These tours have included Azerbaijan, the Republic of Georgia, and Armenia in 2005; Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia in 2006; and Moldova, Croatia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Dominican Republic in 2007. No strangers to performance under adverse conditions, Big Hillbilly Bluegrass is the only American band ever to perform in the international “frozen conflict” zones of Abkhazia and Transnistria. They also have appeared in two movies, Head of State starring Chris Rock, and the independently filmed documentary Bluegrass Journey.
Bob Perilla’s Big Hillbilly Bluegrass has released two CDs, JavaSun (2005) and Big Hillbilly Bluegrass (2006). The band represents Washington, DC’s, worldwide reputation as an epicenter of bluegrass music, while carrying the city’s international banner of goodwill and friendship for the citizens of the U.S.A. They have been dubbed “America’s Defacto Bluegrass Ambassadors” by the Central Asian Times.

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