To honor America’s 250th anniversary, My Brother’s Keeper, a bluegrass band out of Cincinnati, decided to honor their own roots – Scottish – and play ‘Oh Danny Boy.’ The band was playing at the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival in Westcliffe, Colorado, a small, rustic town nestled amidst the rugged beauty of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, part of the southern Rocky Mountains.
Vocalist Titus Luckhaupt’s passionate delivery of the beautiful and heartfelt lyrics left the crowd grasping to reel in their raw emotions. Titus continually set himself up to reach high notes that you thought weren’t possible. Until they were. His voice rang out strong, intentional and melodic. Some members of the audience fell to their knees.
To say it was a powerful rendition would be an understatement.
My Brother’s Keeper consists of three brothers – Titus (vocals & mandolin), Benj (vocals and guitar) and Josh (fiddle, organ, vocals, harmonica) Luckhaupt with Wyatt ‘Sawmill’ Murray on bass and Adam Moehlman on fiddle.
The brothers’ late grandmother, Mary Rose, was the only girl born into a large German family in Columbus Ohio in 1939. Mary was blessed with five brothers, including my father Dick. After high school, she met & married Joe Laukhaupt and moved to Cincinnati.
Fast forward to 2013. Three of Mary’s grandsons – Benj, Titus and Josh – formed the bluegrass / gospel band My Brother’s Keeper. Ten years later the band was signed to a record deal with Robust Records and began touring the south and the Midwest. Together they have written and recorded six studio releases plus a Christmas album.
MBK made their first appearance in Columbus in June 2023 at Natalies Grandview. A strong family contingent of cousins turned out, and their record label rep flew in from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. On one stop in Indiana, MBK caught the eye & ear of Ron Thompson, a bluegrass festival director from Colorado, and invited them out to perform in 2024.
MBK mixes bluegrass with a touch of rock and gospel and features four-part harmonies. On their own website, the band calls themselves progressive bluegrass. Singer / guitarist / songwriter Benj Luckhaupt says the band is inspired by all kinds of music – Brian Wilson, Chris Thile, Alison Kraus, Tony Rice and Bruce Springsteen. He says he wants to write “simple songs that make you think.” Springsteen inspires him the most because he “tells you the facts and then makes you think about the implications.”
One MBK song ‘Touchdown Jesus,’ was inspired by a statue of Jesus along I-75 near Cincinnati that was struck by lightning. Benj, while in Colorado performing, brought up the story between songs. An audience member shouted out, “write a song about it.” By the time the festival ended, MBK had written and performed the song that has become a crowd favorite.
As luck would have it, a cousin of the Luckhaupts lives in Westcliffe, a town so small you have to blow it up on your phone, just to find it. And as history shows, the area has a deep spiritual connection to its beauty, attracting both the wayward and the spiritually aware.
Westcliffe, in 2015, was christened Colorado’s first Dark Sky community. For a thousand years, the Ute and Apache people were nourished by the rich spiritual and natural bounty and beauty the area provided. Because of the aspenglow that bathes the mountain peaks at dawn and dusk, eighteenth century Spanish explorers christened the range ‘Sangre de Cristo’ meaning ‘blood of Christ.’
Bluegrass music is the perfect dance partner to the area’s ubiquitous beauty.
MBK played four one-hour sets over three days at this past summer’s festival, concluding with an all-Gospel set on Sunday. When asked to play an all-Gospel set, singer Benj Luckhaupt responded, “it’s like asking a dog to bark. We were gonna do it anyway, but it was nice to be asked.”
MBK’s opening set on Friday night was the rare event when a band isn’t just performing but feeling what they are playing and singing. And the audience is in lockstep with every word and chord. This was that event.
In addition to the cover of ‘Oh Danny Boy,’ the band brought up their only sister – Elizabeth – who bellowed out Carly Simon’s ‘You’re so Vain.’ The sibling interaction was worth the price of admission. You found your own internal familial feelings bubbling to the surface.
MBK won two separate band of the year awards in 2023, receiving the Josie Music Award and the Appalachian Arts & Entertainment Award for Gospel band of the year. Lead singer and mandolin player Titus Luckhaupt, that same year, won String musician of the year.
MBK plays Columbus every year. They will be at Natalies Grandview on Friday, September 25. Tickets are still available.
The song ‘Oh Danny Boy’ was ultra personal to my wife and I. It was played at our wedding in 2017. It was her father’s favorite song. He just passed in February. My late father Dick, Mary Rose’s brother, had a birthday on Friday, July 10, the day we heard that unforgettable rendition.
The band found Westcliffe, a dot that doesn’t even exist on most maps. And we saw the spiritual wonderment of the southern Rockies play out in front of us in the form of an incredible band…who are family.
So much beauty there to unpack.
Sources: 23rd Annual High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival program, 2026; www.mybrotherskeeperband.com; www.indyfolkseries.org; My Brothers Keeper releases Touchdown Jesus by Courtney Phenicle, Nov 7, 2025, www.cincymusic.com; BGS 5+5: My Brothers Keeper, June 24, 2025, https://thebluegrasssituation.com; placard at base of Sangre de Cristo mountain range (Wet Mountain Valley); Danny Boy: the history and lyrics, www.thetabernaclechoir.org; Featured picture of the band (Josh, Titus, Adam, Benj, Wyatt) was taken with the Sangre de Cristo mountains as a backdrop at the 2026 High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival in Westcliffe, Colorado this past July. Courtesy the RJH collection.