John Skehan of Railroad Earth. He's a fantastic bluegrass picker and put out an album of mando duets composed by Emanuele Barbella
John Skehan of Railroad Earth. He's a fantastic bluegrass picker and put out an album of mando duets composed by Emanuele Barbella
-Avi Avital
-Chris Acquavella
-Aaron Weinstein (though more well-known as a jazz fiddle player)
-Andy Statman
-Dominick Leslie
-David Long
-Mike Compton
-David Benedict
-Evan Marshall
All I can think of is a few players that may have been mentioned, Uncles Gene Johnson and Uncle Dick Smith. Ray Legere, Anthony Hannigan, Scott Pearson-one of many kinda unknown Winfield /other mandolin contest winners. Emory Lester, John Duffey, Buzz Busby, Red Rector, Jethro Burns, Dave Appalon, Ronnie and Dale Reno, All I can think of right now anyway I know there are others, others are too well known like the Dawg, Ronnie McCoury, Sam Bush etc...That list could go on and on!
Who exactly is doing these "ratings" ? Doyle and Gaudreau (and many others mentioned) underrated?.... that's "news" to me.
Re Marty Stuart. Back when Skaggs did his mando extravaganza album, a concert was also filmed and aired on PBS. You can hunt up athread about the show on the MC archives though I don't recall how long ago it was, I added my own comment that from watching, the two guys who were far out ahead of everyone else on stage (on mandolin) were Vince Gill and "Big Hair" Marty Stuart. Yeah the others were good, but Vince and Marty were beyond.
"Underappreciated" is something different from "underrated" especially if the players are from genres you are not that familiar with. There's nothing underrated about Dave Swarbrick, Andy Irvine, Martin Jenkins, etc. if you have any familiarity with UK/Irish folk. There have been numerous MC threads about "Ireland/UK: Who should I listen to?" if you want to dig up those lists of recommendations.
OK, having thought about players who don't already have their talents widely acknowledged, there are only a few that come to mind that have really impressed me.
One is the guy from Railroad Earth. Really liked what he did with the instrument.Another is Jarmo Romppanen from Finland. I taught for three or four days at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki way back in 1995, and Jarmo was one of a half dozen students (all could really play). He's become a really superb player, with control of dynamics, articulation, and nuance I find lacking in most players, including a lot of the pros. He has the BEST sounding 10-string mandolin-mandola I've heard. He is taking the instrument to the type of playing/technique I have pursued and will surely rattle a lot of cages if a Scandinavian player can become an international presence. Just watch the first tune of the medley below!John Skehan of Railroad Earth. He's a fantastic bluegrass picker and put out an album of mando duets composed by Emanuele Barbella
Ale Möller, multi-instrumentalist from Sweden, has been a leading figure in Scandinavia for 30 years. To me, he's a Nordic "Andy Irvine-meets-Martin Carthy" on the trad stuff with his Swedish bouzouki. (but his playing goes far beyond Nordic genres into Balkan, and world fusion. There was a bone-chilling (pro video) of Möller and Aly Bain doing "The New Rigged Ship" but evidently it has been removed from youtube. Can't find an pro/TV fottage of Ale Möller as a duo with Aly Bain or with Bruce Molsky, just audience phone video with substandard video/audio. Here's an audio track from a (Swedish trio) Frifot CD.
But Möller isn't "underrated" since he has been a monster player on the level of Swarbrick, Annbjørn Lien, Vince Gill, Tommy Peoples, Richard Thompson etc. etc. etc.
NH
Andrew Marlin of Mandolin Orange. Not underrated, but criminally under-heralded.
Drew Emmitt.
How about Butch Baldassari.
Ronnie McCoury, my personal fave in terms of his style, along with Dawg...................
Sarah Harris of Trinity River Band, quite a young player who can play circles around the Rhonda Vincent types.........
Marc MacGlashan...!
How about Harry Gilmore from the first Country Cooking album..
One more from Sweden: Erik Igelstrom! Smoking hot jazz player!
Adrian
Herschel Sizemore has to be on the list. On the swing/jazz side, Johnny Gimble was a master. Paul Glasse is another.
Guaranteed 99.9% of you've never heard this cat. Let the video develop.
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among the instruments they play the https://www.last.fm/music/Karelian+Folk+Music+Ensemble,, includes a mandolin.
they have played shows here.
writing about music
is like dancing,
about architecture
"Underrated" is a very strange word. The assumption is that you know exactly how a player is rated by others, and that you know better. Perhasp "overlooked" would be a better term. I venture a guess that most of you have never heard of Dave Gross, whose CD Mandology features som pretty nice jazz mandolin and guitarist Olli Soikkeli (on of the best in the gypsy jazz idiom) on about half of the cuts.
Hamilton de Holanda is rarely mentioned on this forum, in this thread by only one poster. That's strange given his versatility and prolific output. Check out, e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Bailo-Do-Alme...ton+de+holanda
Curtis Buckhannon
One who's well appreciated but not talked about a lot is my other (aside from Dave "Friend of the Devil" Grisman) favorite mando guy, Rich DelGrosso, blues mando's foremost living authority. Thanks to him, I've been improving my blues chops and looking at resonator mandos.
Here's an at least underrecorded player, Tommy Gauthier. He's above all a very versatile and powerful violin player, but he also plays some mandolin and bouzouki. As far as I know he has recorded only one album, Still Strings with guitarist Antoine Dufour.
This is about as good as it gets actually. Along with Mandocrucian's comments about some other Scandinavian players, it's good to be aware of how good some of these guys are. It is not so much that they are underrated as people in the US and elsewhere have never heard of them.
David A. Gordon
Totally agree. I loved that video. Would eagerly ask that more people post clips with their suggestions!
Talking of amazing Scando folk, I saw these guys (Dreamers Circus) play in Aberdeen a while ago with Lau and they were crazy good (no mando, but they do have a cittern)
Emil and Erik have a couple of EPs available. Really nice playing!
https://youtu.be/lRcmRP7kjHo
Hi Chris. The cittern player is a Swedish guy called Ale Carr. There was a thread on the Cafe about him a couple of years ago you might be interested in. Cheers Dagger
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...highlight=carr
David A. Gordon
And while we're at Magnus Zetterlund is another very good Swedish mandolin player. Here is a video of what looks like a great gig his band the Nordic Trio played at Urkult a few years ago.
David A. Gordon
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