Well my major influence to mandolin has been the great late Ed King of lynyrd skynyrd , his way of playing hillibilly blues is superb , Gosh how on earth such a musician is no longer with us ?
Rip. Ed and thanks for your art
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I have a confession to make: Although I had heard Bill Monroe's recordings from time to time on the radio, I never cared for his voice. And I never thought the mandolin was any part of anything.
Then I heard Dean Webb on the Dillards, Live! LP. Specifically, it was the "Liberty" cut. I said to myself, Wow, now THAT is some part of something! Even though I was an old timey banjo wannabee at the time, I marvelled at the sound and eventually took up the mandolin. Liberty was one of my first tunes.
ps: I did come around on Bill Monroe, too. But it was an "acquired taste".
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Being a NY suburbs kid in the '60s and early '70s, I never heard a mandolin -- except perhaps when Dean Webb of the Dillards appeared on "The Andy Griffith Show" as one of the Darling brothers. But my "aha" moment came in maybe 1972 when I was listening to listener-sponsored WBAI in NYC and happened on a blazing instrumental where a high-pitched stringed instrument with a ringing tone played something bluesy with a rhythm that really rocked... turned out to be Bill Monroe playing Bluegrass Stomp. Didn't even know it was a mandolin until later. But that distinctive sound stayed with me and even today still keeps me striving to reproduce something even close to it.
Saw Homer and Jethro in the 50's but the mandolin didn't register. After 3 years of piano lessons, 6 years in the church choir and several years with a bit of finger picking and flat picking on a guitar, I found an old fiddle in the attic and wanted to learn that. In the mean time I had picked up Bluegrass Instrumentals, and was most taken by the fiddle, the mandolin (heresy here) didn't really register with me. While struggling with the fiddle, I played guitar and sang in a bluegrass band. One day the mandolin player was taking a break and I picked up his mandolin, all at once the stuff I had struggled so hard with on the fiddle, and been so unsuccessful with, worked. Shortly after, I also heard Nate Bray on 419 W. Main, which had just come out, and boy did it register! He was gone by then, but I got to play with his brothers quite a bit, and to hear a lot of his work from a private collection. Huge inspiration. No turning back, that was almost 50 years ago and I still keep at it, lucky to be able to.
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Hey Bernie, I appreciate your admiration of Jeff -- but please be careful before pronouncing people dead (and of AIDS, no less!).
I played in a little band with Jeff in the summer of 1983, and he was fit as a fiddle back then. But your post made me very sad and worried, so I just googled to check ... and he sure looks pretty healthy on his website, which is dated 2018: http://www.jeffterflinger.com/about.html
In November, 1970 I saw Robin Williamson, of the Incredible String Band, and Levon Helm, The Band, perform. I've been in love with the little 8-stringer ever since!
Besides seeing Peter Ostroushko playing around the Twin Cities, also was heavily influenced in person by Bob Douglas, Chirps Smith, Ralph Tuttila and the instructors at the Bluff Country Gathering down in Lanesboro, MN. And recordings by Norman and Nancy Blake, Heikki Lahti, Jethro Burns, Dawg and all the folks who have played in Fairport Convention.
There are others, but those mentioned above are probably the biggest influences.
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Hi Bernie,
Thank you for the kind words of appreciation, even in death. I don't know how these rumors get started. Probably wishful thinking from Homophobes from around Cincinnati. Oh wait,,, that's why I moved to California, to escape from them.
The only part of me that died was my youth. I am playing fiddle now, a bench made 1943 J. R. Carlisle. At 65 years, my love for music remains undiminished and I play 3 hours a day. I now have different heroes. Django Reinhardt, Stephan Grappelli, Hilary Hahn and the music of Bach.
Since I got THAT off my chest I'll comment on the thread. I started playing mandolin at around age of 14. There were not an abundance of players to hear back then, this would have been around 1966. My favorite players were Bill Monroe, John Duffey, Bob Osborne and Jesse McReynolds. I bought an album of fiddle tunes, I believe it was Wade Ray? Sonny Osborne played banjo on it
and Jethro Burns played mandolin! At that point he became my favorite inspiration.
I took up mandolin because my Dad played as an Applachian kid in the teens and 20s and as I approached retiring I decided to take it up. Never thought about it when I started guitar playing in my teens. Never heard him play as we never had a mandolin.
Since starting to play, its been Jethro, Adam Steffey, Evan Marshall and Don Stiernberg as my inspirational heroes.
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I've mentioned this in a couple other threads, but the responsibility for my picking up the mandolin lies squarely at the feet of Andrew Marlin, with help from Will Kimble.
Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to let them both know about that, which they have seemingly accepted with characteristic grace...
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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Christian Johnson of Mission Mountain Wood Band got me interested in the mandolin when I first saw them at the U of Montana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missio...tain_Wood_Band
I went down to a music store and bought a $60 mandolin (1976). Picked up a mandolin how-to book and started learning about Sam Bush, David Grisman, and other mandolinists. Newgrass Revival's Fly Through the Country album cemented my choice.
Moved to Alaska where I discovered Joe Page of Tanana Grass, the premier bluegrass band in the state at that time.
And it was The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 album that took me away from bluegrass. Now my heroes are Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Django, and Stephane Grappelli, but I still enjoy listening to bands that have taken bluegrass into interesting directions.
I am an old coot and my first memory of a mandolin was hearing J B Hammitte playing with his brothers in church. That was about 65 years ago. When I heard Monroe play, I was hooked. I tried to play like that. All of his gospel albums that I still have. Next big influence was when a friend suggested the "Appalachian Swing" album. Then Hershel Sizemore, Dempsey Young, Mike Compton. When I play, I hear the melody and play off of that. I cannot play the scale , chord progression style that seems so popular today.
1) I likely would have never even heard the mandolin if it wasn't for Bill Monroe, so I'd have to put him at the top of the list.
2) Clarence White. Seriously. In my book, CW was the best flatpicker ever. In my efforts to keep improving my flatpicking, I was always looking for direction, instruction, and new inspiration. What I found was a trend. I saw that a whole bunch of great flatpickers (and good local ones) also played the mandolin, banjo, or fiddle as well as the guitar, even if they only played the other instrument casually. When I saw that CW also played a bit of mandolin, it pushed me over the edge and I traded a guitar for a mandolin within a week. Frankly, it was one of the best musical decisions I ever made.
3) Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Sierra Hull. They've all been featured in videos giving instruction on the fundamentals. I've taken their suggestions to heart and benefitted from them.
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