Multi-Instrumentalist Collaborations You Would Love to See Happen

[dbilello]

w/ heavy mando content of course! Saw Steve Earle last night and got me to thinking...

Blake/Bromberg
Stecher/O'Brien
Cooder/Earle
?/?

Interested in recommendations on existing collaboration albums to check out too.

[Ed Goist]

Marty Stuart and Stuart Duncan and John Paul Jones, Oh my! :)

[klaezimmer]

Wow! There is an impressive array of folk who could show up in this thread. Ed has gotten this launched with a good start. I'd be interested in hearing what David Lindley, Darrell Scott, Scott Thurston, Stuart Duncan, and David Muse could come up with. And then, there is Sarah Jarosz, Greg Leisz (is there something about names ending in 'sz' that could be significant?), Tim O'Brien, and Terry Kirkman. And then, there is..., what?!? Do I hear the scratching of heads and the calling upon Google?

[keithb]

I'd love to see Sarah Jarosz and Oliver Craven (of The Stray Birds) do something together.

[sgrexa]

Mark Knopfler and Tim O'Brien except with Tim running the show.

[Barry Wilson]

Jim Richter and JPJ

[Ivan Kelsall]

Having recently found a couple of YouTube clips of ''Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers'' playing with the ''Centrevile Alternative Strings'' Youth Orchestra,i'd love to have a CD of that combination of glorious orchestral strings along with a Bluegrass band, & one mandolin is all that's needed. I can hear 'in my head' a number of Bill Monroe's fiddle instrumentals played by a 'group' of violins,''Stoney Lonesome'' springs to mind, & i get goose bumps !!,
Ivan:disbelief:
http://youtu.be/j11SYrqaodw - ''Cruisin' Timber''
http://youtu.be/GeGryS01O-Q - ''Some Kind of War''

[Toni Schula]

Extending to vocalists:

Yoyo Ma + Sarah Jarosz
Strength in Numbers + Suzanne Vega

[JimRichter]

Jim Richter and JPJ

Dang, hope John Paul Jones reads this. my phone line is open :)

[allenhopkins]

...Blake/Bromberg..

This happened years ago; see The Boggy Road to Milledgeville on Bromberg's first album, David Bromberg; it's Bromberg and Blake playing Arkansas Traveller.

Saw John Hartford's Aero-Plain band at the Fox Hollow Festival near Troy NY (1972, I think); Hartford, Blake, Tut Taylor and Vassar Clements. Bromberg came up and joined them, along with Vermont fiddler Alan Stowell. I think there's a cut on one of the Fox Hollow live albums that captured that collaboration.

[Michael Weaver]

Monroe/Scruggs/Flatt/Wise/Rainwater can you imagine how awesome that would be?!!

[Rex Hart]

Paul McCartney/Jackson Browne Melody+Lyrics

[Jim Garber]

Andy Statman, Tim O'Brien and Michael Cleveland...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCnOTlepqc

[mandocrucian]

So many of my favorites have already played together in bands, or duos, or as session guys on their own or other people's records. Dave Swarbrick/Richard Thompson/John Kirkpatrick/Jerry Donahue/Martin Carthy. There are so many reconfigurations of potential alternate universe Fairport Convention lineups, that everyone eventually records with each other in some way or another. And then the various Cropredy assemblages. The occasional Carthy/Thompson tracks with both on acoustic guitars are really memorable

Albert Lee/James Burton/Jerry Donahue etc...
Cooder/Lindley and all those folks Cooder has guested with
Johnny Almond (sax/flute) and electric violinist Sugarcane Harris (several tracks together on John Mayall's Back To The Roots album.)

It was too bad that Hendrix never did that many guest appearances on other players' records. A couple tracks on Love's False Start and on the first Stephen Stills album.

I think a collaboration between British pedal steel player BJ Cole (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bj-cole-mn0000068032/biography) and Brian Eno could be sublime.

And....I would like to hear Ian Anderson join Spinal Tap for a rendition of "Stonehenge"

[mountain dawg]

I would like to see the dawg an Carlos Santana or Chris Thile an Carlos Santana there would be some great stuff with these guys.

[mandopops]

No Mandolin Content:

Rahsaan Roland Kirk & Eric Dolphy

Joe

[sgarrity]

Compton and Blake

[mandocrucian]

Randy Newman w/Richard Thompson & (violinist) Sid Page
Ale Moller w/John Kirkpatrick (or Flaco Jimenez, or Maria Kalaniemi) or Martin Carthy

[DataNick]

Monroe and Hendrix (on his 6-string acoustic he played backstage at Woodstock)...

Think of Bill Monroe playing that break on "The Wind Cries Mary"; all of those double stop type licks that Jimi did; except Bill Monroe doing them on Mando...

[Jeff Mando]

Monroe and Hendrix (on his 6-string acoustic he played backstage at Woodstock)...

People forget how times have changed. We are much more open to hybrid styles of music, now. Bill Monroe, was a genius, but he was also a hippie hating SOB, rest his soul. Remember he turned down the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's offer to feature him on Will The Circle Be Unbroken...fortunately Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, & Earl Scruggs were more open minded. People today don't know how ground breaking the first New Grass Revival album was back then. Great LP, seems very traditional by today's standards, but having long hair was reason enough to be hated by the traditional Bluegrass community. Adding electric bass could get ya killed back then! Monroe and Hendrix I would love to see, but would have been a longshot back then. (although George Wallace hugged Jesse Jackson on his deathbed, so stranger things have happened!) I realize I'm walking a fine line here and will stop, but could go on--Al Kooper recording with Dylan in Nashville in the Sixties and getting chased down an alley by rednecks in a pickup truck...times have actually changed in 45 years, although sometimes it doesn't seem like it.

[DataNick]

Bill Monroe at his core was a "blues guy"; certainly heavily influenced by fiddle tune music but a "blues guy" nonetheless; as was Jimi.

I can't help but think that in the right context, they certainly could have "jammed"; as evidenced by this seminal moment captured below of Bill Monroe jamming with Mance Lipscomb; another unlikely musical get together given the nature of the history of Jim Crow Southern attitudes. Somehow I think primarily because of Arnold Shultz, that Bill had a "different" attitude toward blacks than the "common" Southerner of his day.

120632

[Mike Bunting]

Bill also had a good relationship with Deford Bailey and connected with Albert King at one time. But the race thing is irrelevant, as was pointed out, Bill might not have played with Hendrix because of his counter cultural image , not because he was black. I bet he would have had a good time jamming with Jimi if the occasion had arisen. Monroe WAS a musician after all.

[Jeff Mando]

You are right Bill Monroe was a "blues guy", Rocky Road Blues, etc. I wasn't thinking race as much as hippie/r'n'r vs. country/bluegrass of the day. Speaking of race, as a young man I got to interview some of the old Sun Records rockabilly artists in the 80's, basically my heroes. I say old, they were probably in their late 40's or early 50's then. I was hoping to unlock the secret of such an enlighted time (in my mind) the combining of blues and country into rock and roll. If anyone knew the secret these guys would. By the second question, they responded with N-word this and N-word that, and I can't tell you how disappointed I was to hear their true feelings. They loved the music, but not the people it came from. I guess I was naive to think it would have been otherwise.

[DataNick]

Bill also had a good relationship with Deford Bailey and connected with Albert King at one time. But the race thing is irrelevant, as was pointed out, Bill might not have played with Hendrix because of his counter cultural image , not because he was black. I bet he would have had a good time jamming with Jimi if the occasion had arisen. Monroe WAS a musician after all.

I was musing that perhaps potentially such a "jam" could have been possible before Jimi was "hippie"; when he was an R&B/Blues guy playing the R&B blues clubs in NY circa the Isley Bros. period, etc. all before hippie existed, and that Jimi being a black "blues/r&b guy" would have been in a position potentially to rub shoulders with Monroe. It's all a fantasy jam/postulation anyway! I just think it would have been fascinating, and as you say Monroe most likely would have enjoyed the experience.

[Jeff Mando]

You're right, it's a fantasy jam, would have been cool to see! I guess we could also imagine if Jimi had lived to be an elder statesman and currently jamming with someone like Thile!

[lflngpicker]

Paul McCartney/Jackson Browne Melody+Lyrics

Now that is a great combination-- best melodies ever with greatest lyricist ever! Good call, Rex.

[Jeff Mando]

You are right Bill Monroe was a "blues guy", Rocky Road Blues, etc. I wasn't thinking race as much as hippie/r'n'r vs. country/bluegrass of the day. Speaking of race, as a young man I got to interview some of the old Sun Records rockabilly artists in the 80's, basically my heroes. I say old, they were probably in their late 40's or early 50's then. I was hoping to unlock the secret of such an enlighted time (in my mind) the combining of blues and country into rock and roll. If anyone knew the secret these guys would. By the second question, they responded with N-word this and N-word that, and I can't tell you how disappointed I was to hear their true feelings. They loved the music, but not the people it came from. I guess I was naive to think it would have been otherwise.

Not to say they were'nt brilliant artists, they were. And they were just normal guys, farmer's, laborer's, etc, who played music and were at the right place at the right time. The kindest way to say it is, they were a product of the time.

[DataNick]

You're right, it's a fantasy jam, would have been cool to see! I guess we could also imagine if Jimi had lived to be an elder statesman and currently jamming with someone like Thile!

Now you're talkin'...Hendrix & Thile...whew!

[DataNick]

Here's another couple: John Mclaughlin & Chris Thile, Paco DeLucia & Dawg

[JeffD]

Woo hoo!

[jesserules]

Woo hoo!

Just in case anybody doesn't know, that tour happened because of Micky Dolenz, who thought Jimi - then still fairly obscure -was great and wanted to help him break through. Unfortunately there was very little overlap between the Monkees' demographic and the potential Jimi Hendrix Experience demographic. Still, Jimi got some useful press out of it.

Oh, and guests who appeared on the Monkees TV show because the band wanted them included Frank Zappa, Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger, Tim Buckley ...

[sgarrity]

Bill Monroe and Yank Rachell.

[klaezimmer]

Maybe I am not familiar enough with some of the people mentioned here, but I know some of these folk as being virtuosos on one instrument as opposed to quite remarkable on a number of instruments. As an aside, I will say that some of those virtuoso collaborations would be truly entertaining.

Another collaboration I'd like to see is Roger Landes, Robin Bullock, and since we've been mentioning dead people, I'd throw in Mark Heard as a wild card.

Ron

[mandopops]

Yea, like klaezimmer, I thought the thread was about players who were/are noteworthy becuz they are "Multi-Instrumentalists" (Players who play multiple instruments). Then put a couple of them together.

I know some of the players might play another instrument, but that is not their claim to fame, so to speak. Some of the combos mentioned might be cool, but not the theme.

That was my reading of it. So I went w/ Kirk & Dolphy.

(That said, I would have liked to have heard Monroe w/ Lipscomb)

Joe

[klaezimmer]

Chris Hillman, Gene Parsons, and Al Perkins

[JeffD]

I would love to see Andy Statman and Chris Thile on a stage together. Not in any competitive way, not a battle of the titans. I just want to see what those two mando-minds would come up with. It would be a legendary performance.

It could happen.

[Ed Goist]

I would love to see Andy Statman and Chris Thile on a stage together.
...snip...

At any given time, I wonder who the third best mandolin player in New York City is? :)

[dbilello]

Watson/Hartford

Blake/Thile

Lots of great folks to check out noted in the thread. Thanks all!

[9lbShellhamer]

Wayne Benson, Mike Compton.
Ronnie McCoury, Chris Thile.

I'd also love to see a mandolin on some Avett Bros. stuff just because I'm a fan. Even though they aren't "great instrumentalists" I enjoy their song writing...

[Austin Bob]

Conway Twitty and Neil Young.

[mvlh]

David Grisman + Richard Thompson