What song/album inspired you to pick up the mandol

[Christian McKee]

Sam Bush on Bela Fleck and the Flecktones "Live Art" double album. #After years and years of singing, I had stopped making music because it lost some lustre. #Once I listened to that record a few times around, I was ready to pick up either the mandolin or the soprano saxaphone. #I ended up with the mandolin because it felt a little more accessable, and like I might have an easier time finding other people to play music with. #

A few years later I was playing electric rock and roll on my electric mandolin, and made my self inaccessable all over again # Live and learn...

Christian

[Patrick Sylvest]

As I was learning the Dobro, everything I listened to had mandolin also. Before long, I wanted one of those too. Now I enjoy learning them both. I'd have to say it was Ricky Skaggs and Dan Tyminski for me.

[BPV]

Loved Dawg playing with the Dead....then Ricky Skaggs,...but it was Dawg & Sam Bush playing "Hartford's Real" a few years back....That sealed the deal.

[northfolk]

I would have to say the year 1970; the band, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; the album, Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy; the song, Clinch Mountain Back Step; the mandolin player, Les Thompson; the mandolin, a fine looking Gibson F4. What ever happened to Les Thompson, by the way?

[Chris Travers]

Ricky Skaggs

[luckylarue]

Hearing Old & In the Way and Hot Rize's Untold Stories.
Seeing Sam Bush & Strength In Numbers at Telluride in '87 or '88 - blew my mind.
Also, around the same year, not getting in to a Dead show in Oakland and hanging out listening to some unknown guy jamming bluegrass - I'd never really seen/heard the mandolin up-close and personal like that before. Muchas gracias to all!

[mandroid]

I've always been a long way from what anyone would call 'the action'

when every tom dick and harry was a guitar studmuffin, a fretted instrument with a violin scale gave me something
to try turn turn my psychological isolation into music.

[Markelberry]

WINFIELD!! then it was alot of fiddle tunes.

[Andrew Faltesek]

Way back when...? Ahhhh... Norman Blake and the Rising Faun String Band...
I think it was Songs from the Mysterious South or something like that; on an old casette tape.

After mando aquisition, it was Shady Grove and Tone Poems.

[PatrickH]

Was a rock and blues musician all my life. Never owned a bluegrass record or saw a show. Then I heard "Ode to a Butterfly" and was hooked.

That led me to the mandolin which led me to bluegrass and now I am a big fan and have Bill, Del, Ricky, Alison, Tim, CD's etc in great numbers. Have also seen a bunch of shows (Skaggs, Union Station, Tim O'Brien).

Funny I don't play much bluegrass on my mandolins (more celtic and folk and classical and rock even) but I did become a bluegrass fan out of the experience.

So even though you would be hard-pressed to say Nickel Creek was bluegrass I was led to it by one of their songs (in an end around way).

Patrick

[Jonmiller]

"Maggie May", (Rod Steward)1972 Ray Jackson on mandolin.
My pop had an old round back that I'd cart around.

[auteq]

Maggie May, Rod S.

[mingusb1]

Sam on Bela's Drive record.

Z

[mando bandage]

The seed was planted with Grisman's session work on Grateful Dead's American Beauty. I got pushed over the edge with Ronnie McCoury's session work on the V-Roys' All About Town album.

Backed into bluegrass from there.

Not the most direct route, I'll admit.

R

[Brandon Flynn]

Ode to a butterfly: Thile on the first Nickel Creek album.

[mandocrucian]

What ever happened to Les Thompson, by the way?

Les has had a jeweler's shop for 20+ years in Leesburg, VA calledDesigner Goldsmith's.

He also has a recording studio called Cabin Studios

Niles H

[Jim]

The Dead "Friend of the devil" opened my ears to it and a great Red Rocks concert with the DGQ and a bunch of other good players too many to mention in 81 or 2 but it was New Grass revival Anthology in the late 80s that finally made me pick one up.

[Rick Schmidlin]

I forgot

[Singist]

For me it was the song Trail of Tears by Billy Ray Cyrus. Been playing guitar for years but that song really opened my ears to the Mando and I had to buy one. Been practicing with it ever since.

Cheers Pete.

[300win]

No certain song/tune inspried me to take up mandolin. I began on guitar at age 10, then banjo later that same year, then mandolin at age 12. Although I mainly worked on the banjo, I did not begin to play the mandolin seriously until age 13 when I got together with 3 other boys my age. We formed a band, {the Bluegrass Buddies}, { Jimmy Haley on guitar, Louis Pyrtle aka Lou Reid on bass, Myron Nunn on banjo, and myself on mandolin and played together for the next few years. Part of that band became the Second Edition, { Jimmy Haley on guitar, Lou Reid on bass, and fiddle, Jimmy Smith on guitar and bass, Hersey McMillian on banjo, and myself on mandolin. then part of that became Southbound,the same people, then later Dennis Severt was on mandolin as I had quit, and Doug Campbell was on bass. then two of those went on to form the Sons Of Bluegrass, { Jimmy Haley on guitar, Lou Reid on bass, Terry Baucom on banjo, and I forget who the mando picker was. then three of those went with Doyle Lawson's fisrt QuickSilver band, being Jimmy Haley, Terry Baucom and Lou Reid. I begin picking the mandolin in the Bluegrass Buddies band because Louis { Lou Reid } could not stand to play the mandolin, he wanted to play bass. Now Lou picks mandolin for a living in his on band Carolina, and with the Seldom Scene. I still play the guitar and banjo, but only at home. The mandolin is the one instrument that I've always been intrigued with, and the one I love.

[PhilGE]

Svingin' with Svend. Svend Asmussen and David Grisman. No longer available, unfortunately.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Something So Feminine About A Mandolin on Havana Daydreamingby Jimmy Buffett.