as for LIVE music, i was at telluride (saw 87-91) and i think it was in 88, maybe 87 that the all star jam did it for me. Sam, Tony, Bela, Jerry, Mark and John, i think were the band. certainly most of them. rocked my socks off to this day!
as for LIVE music, i was at telluride (saw 87-91) and i think it was in 88, maybe 87 that the all star jam did it for me. Sam, Tony, Bela, Jerry, Mark and John, i think were the band. certainly most of them. rocked my socks off to this day!
1935 Gibson A-1 Wide mandolin
Late 1800's Unbranded German fiddle
Around 1964. I was about 13. Rolling Stones. They led me to the Blues. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, changed my mind about how the Blues could be played. Pretty much all I listened to until one day in 1977. That day, over my wife's (girlfriend then) house, I put on Fly Through the Country by Newgrass Revival. That changed everything. I wanted a mandolin. Bought a US made Harmony H410, used, at Baltimore Bluegrass. Probably the only US made mandolin I would own until this year. I still play the Blues. Newgrass Revival, however, opened up another world of music for me. Then David Grisman and Tony Rice took it a little further. Wasn't for a few more years until I went back to the roots of Bluegrass and discovered the founding bands of the music. My musical tastes are still mainly about the roots music of North America, and how those roots expanded.
Ray Dearstone #009 D1A (1999)
Skip Kelley #063 Offset Two Point (2017)
Arches #9 A Style (2005)
Bourgeois M5A (2022)
Hohner and Seydel Harmonicas (various keys)
"Heck, Jimmy Martin don't even believe in Santy Claus!"
I'm of "that" age, so the whole British Invasion was a huge influence, and still is...
The Jefferson Airplane was my favorite band, and I'd go see them whenever they hit SoCal...
Like everyone else, started a band:
When I went away to college, for some goofy reason I sold my candy-apple red Stratocaster and Bandmaster amp (and surfboard too!), thinking they were "youthful distractions"...
But later that year I went to see The Allman Brothers who asked if anyone wanted to come up and jam, and I did--playing Duane's Les Paul while he took a little break.
I've been playing (and surfing) ever since...
As far as mandolin goes, I was attending UC Berkeley in the early 70's, and watched the whole incredible mandolin universe open up and flourish during that decade, with players like Tim Ware, Tom Bekeny, John Reischman, Bob Alekno, Dix Bruce, John Gonder, Todd Phillips, Eric Thompson, Tony Marcus, and of course the Dawg.
That first DGQ LP was really the eye-opener for me, but the bootleg tapes of the live shows were really my touchstones for learning to play...
"Mandolin World News" sure helped, too...
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
It was no big deal--25 people in the audience...
...and I sucked.
Full story here...
...but it totally got me into playing music again...
Orcas Island Tonewoods
Free downloads of my mandolin CDs:
"Mandolin Graffiti"
"Mangler Of Bluegrass"
"Overhead At Darrington"
"Electric Mandolin Graffiti"
Found this one--Texas Fiddle Favorites in the early 1970s:
https://www.discogs.com/Major-Frankl...elease/3137665
I liked Western Swing and this represents the fiddle style its based on. Really enjoyed the swing feel of it and the variations. Not much of this is played here in New England. Texas style fiddlers have their own versions of standard fiddle tunes, and I like playing them with Bluegrass groups. Byron Berline, Sam Bush and Mark O'Connor are influenced by Texas fiddling and this LP steered me to their music. Volume two features the great Benny Thomasson.
In college I started on the mandolin and later a friend lent me Bill Keith's 1976 LP "Something Auld Something Newgrass Something Borrowed Something Bluegrass" and that recording opened a lot of musical doors for me. It featured a wide variety of songs and tunes from rock and jazz as well as traditional grass and old time, and the players all brought an intense musical creativity to the project. It wasn't just Bill and Jim Rooney, both of whom I loved, but also Tony Rice, David Grisman, and Tom Gray, all of whom who were new to me then. My friend didn't get his album back for a long time. (Off the point somewhat, but I saw DG with Del in Troy NY a few weeks ago--it was powerful bluegrass by two masters still in their prime.)
I don't know--it was probably a bunch of them all together.
but some notable ones for guitar:
Albert King-Crosscut saw--when I was trying to figure out how to solo on a guitar I knew the scales and all that but nothing clicked until I was given an old book with the solo to this song in standard tuning (Albert King tuned to Em--maybe other tunings and had his strings upside down compared to regular guitar tuning.)--so having it in standard tuning helped.
I played the first 4 notes & it clicked--and I was off & running.
Cowgirl int he Sand by Neil Young was another big one.
Then the phrasing of Jon Lord's keyboard playign with Deep Purple.
There are other influences.
But I don't know that I can name as obvious of choices/influences for mandolin or bass.
Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?
I was a military kid in Italy. My older brother sent it to my mom & dad from college in OK. I was completely blown away. Here were these folks that were old when my mom & dad were kids, no electronic gizmos; nothin' but air between them and the mike. I've been listening to almost nothing but acoustic & bluegrass ever since.
I heard Steve Martin play Foggy Mountain Breakdown on one of his standup albums, in the late 1970s, I think, in his bit about how the banjo could have saved Nixon. I think my jaw probably hit the floor, and I wanted to play the banjo from then on. Wasn't til over 30 years later during what I jokingly refer to as a mid-life crisis that I finally picked one up and started playing. That led me to the mandolin, which in turn led me to writing this post.
In high school, I was obsessed with the Beatles, and one day while I was listening to their album, "Beatles for Sale," I told my mom I wanted to take guitar lessons, and she called someone she knew, and next thing I knew I was playing guitar. I didn't play much past college (except occasionally), but without that foundation, I never would have been able to pick up the banjo or mandolin so quickly years later.
One of the musicians that inspired me is Dutch artist called Daniel Lohues, and his love for American folk, blues and country got me hooked on playing both mandolin and exploring the history of music in America (rock and pop music aside). Another reason I love his music is that all his lyrics are in a very old Dutch dialect called lower Saxon which is only spoken in the area where I was born and raised (the Dutch country side). His music is the perfect cure for my homesick blues.
Here's two vids, both with mandolins.
Special mention for OAITW as they really made bluegrass accessible for me and made me serious about learning traditional mandolin music
Gram Parsons
Big Muddy EM8 solid body (Mike Dulak's final EM8 build)
Kentucky KM-950
Weber Gallatin A Mandola "D hole"
Rogue 100A (current campfire tool & emergency canoe paddle)
In 2005-2006 during my senior year of high school, one of my best friends bought a new laptop. It was a PC and it came with a few songs already stocked in windows media player. One of the stock tunes was "This Side" by Nickel Creek, and the first time I heard it I felt as if the song inside me was finally audible. It changed my life, and made music something greater for me
TKD Falcon F5
In general, Thelonious Monk did the most damage to me. But also Bela Fleck's "Drive" album, Ry Cooder's "Boomer's Story" and most of the work by Danny Barnes all made me want to spend too much time on music and not enough on things that are financially rewarding.
But the beauty they create is better than any real estate or whatever. That stuff has real power.
Two gigantic moments in my musical development, and actually, like all sudden realizations, a bit of discomfort was involved. pleasant.
Steve Earl - Galway Girl
Eddie Vedder - Rise
What I discovered is that there is this whole 'nuther dimension to playing mandolin. Musicality. Without musicality it just doesn't matter how good you are, how mandolinny you can play, how pyrotechnical you can make your breaks... and... musicality need not involve mandolin virtuosity at all. Musicality cannot be reached by practicing more arpeggios or working on a smooth tremolo, or playing a tune in every key, or learning double stops.
One can pursue being a better mandolin player, and totally miss becoming a better musician.
It is a whole 'nother dimension.
Its obvious saying it, but realizing it is something else. To wake up one morning and find out you are taking the wrong bus.
Pete Seeger first, then his half brother Mike.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
Probably Stevie Wonder's Innervisions knocked me out more than just about anything else. I was astounded that he wrote and performed almost every sound on that album. The lyrics were also extremely mind-bending to my young mind.
"Well, I don't know much about bands but I do know you can't make a living selling big trombones, no sir. Mandolin picks, perhaps..."
In 1964 I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and it all started. Then, also in '64, I saw the Beach Boys on Ed Sullivan and was stunned. I thought their harmonies were the most incredible thing I'd ever heard. After that and during the process of coming of age in the latter half of the 60s there were endless musical discoveries (and music enhancement discoveries) jerking me around in many directions, good and bad. I'm guessing that's probably about how it was with a lot of middle class baby boomers.
I still have moments of musical revelation, but not so often. My most recent revelatory incident happened when I was thumbing through some CDs for some background music to listen to while working on a project at home. I pulled out the Coleman Hawkins' "Body and Soul" album that I'd inherited from my dad, stuck it in the player and turned it on. At some point I realized I'd started moving and grooving to that music and digging it in a really big way like I'd never done before with jazz. Coleman Hawkins snuck into my subconscious and flipped a switch. I've got a moderate collection of jazz recordings, but for some reason this one made me hear it in a new way.
From birth, listening to Ruggiero Ricci playing Paganini,,where do you go from there? Later on, it was Earl Scruggs playing the theme to Bonnie and Clyde,, (foggy mountain breakdown) which did a number on my young teenage mind...after that,,Billy Cobham,,,
An addend here: I think most importantly for me the discovery of the music of David Grisman, Tony Rice, Norman Blake and their range of associates in the latter '70s and early 80's determined the general direction of my playing and from then to present. That was the direction that made me want to play mandolin, but the genres I attempt to play within have been widening considerably in the past couple years.
My older brother is my biggest musical influence. He doesn't play any instrument but he got me into Neil Young and later John Prine early in life. A high school friend got me into the Dead and I was pretty much picking what we would later call Americana tunes about 20 years later. I started learning bluegrass fiddle around the same time (had already been a classical violinist for about 5 years). None of this was a big change or awakening to me at that time. So many of my favorite musicians have been mentioned already - Allmans, Zep, etc. I was washing dishes in a restaurant when I first heard Sultans of Swing on the radio. I had never heard rock sound so cool before. Many years later I accidentally started playing mandolin and picked up a bunch more fiddle tunes and old time.
About 5 years ago Pandora pulled up a tune from The Green Room by Hot Club Sandwich. That's when I knew what I really wanted to do with mandolin. So I'm slowly trying to absorb and learn Gypsy Jazz.
in response. . .
To, "Change" a perspective requires that you'd obtained one already. My perspective was framed by church hymns; Burl Ives; Peter, Paul and Mary; CSN; Greatful Dead; Vanilla Fudge; Chicago (first album); Quicksilver; Moody Blues; Cream; etc. All the stuff on the radio. I can almost recall the nigh when I first got into jazz though - headset jazz first. Les McCann's, "Invitation to Openness" being of note. From there it was on to the whole spectrum of jazz. Don't get me wrong, I was all on board for NGR, Seldom Scene, OAITW, etc. But Les McCann (and subsequent years, Lonnie Liston Smith, Eddie Jefferson; Leon Thomas (the Cosmic Yodeler - well and Pharoah Sanders too) set me on different path - something not typically played on WHFS.
f-d
ˇpapá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!
'20 A3, '30 L-1, '97 914, 2012 Cohen A5, 2012 Muth A5, '14 OM28A
I bought a mandolin, learning for about 4 months when a friend tells me I should go with him to a music camp for a week to learn. He booked me in to the advanced class !! On the way there he informed me of that fact and says "You can handle it". Well the class was with John Reischman, not only did it open my mind to the mandolin, it also opened my mind to all the other aspects of music. Also how to approach music without an ego and play to make those around me sound better. A class act to be sure and my experiences then and after with John were some of the best in my musical life.
Dave
Heiden A, '52 Martin D-18, Taylor 510, Carlson Custom A with Electronics
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