News

John R. Burr is that rare pianist who combines jazz technique with a genuine love for folk music. The Philadelphia Weekly said, “Pianist extraordinaire John R. Burr has the most sparkling style since former Allman Brother-turned-Rolling Stone hired hand Chuck Leavell.” Discology wrote, “John R. Burr ranks with the best of the elegant jazzers.”

Burr was first drawn to the piano at the age of 10 when he heard Vince Guaraldi’s playing on the Peanut’s animated TV specials. He started out as a child prodigy drummer; he was the only child out of 5 siblings not forced to study the piano. It wasn’t until he was in high school that his focus turned to the keyboard. He then discovered that there were too many drummers to compete with and the piano became his instrument of choice.

After years of touring with such artists as Maria Muldaur, The Alison Brown Quartet, Paul McCandless, Michael Manring and Kathy Kallick and recognition including a feature spot on Windham Hill’s Piano Sampler II, Burr is stepping out with his first solo album, Piedmont Avenue. His playing is as likely to be inspired by James Taylor or Doctor John as by Oscar Peterson or the Yellowjackets although he says it is his love of folk music that has influenced him most. His musical diversity has enabled him to tour and record with a variety of artists and has made him the ideal pianist for the ground breaking folk/jazz group, The Alison Brown Quartet. Burr explains, “I play a sort of jazz piano version of the vocal music that I love to listen to. That’s what influences me. I love to play and study jazz but I listen to vocal, folk/singer/songwriter music. I’m always searching for that melodic song-like quality when I improvise.”

Piedmont Avenue is full of examples of Burr’s musically lyrical style. Burr feels that the seventh track on the album, “Counting the Days”, comes the closest to bridging the gap between jazz and folk. The tune was written with multi-reed specialist Paul McCandless in mind, containing chord changes that are reminiscent of McCandless’ writing and improvising. McCandless joins Burr on this track as well as on Point of Departure. On the lead off track, Burr, a long time Beatles fan, pays tribute to the group with his own take on the classic Lennon & McCartney song, Black Bird. Burr’s unique rendition, playfully titled Black(ened) Bird, incorporates a New Orleans style groove.

Burr’s playing is engaging and his breezy style blending jazz and folk influences makes for a rare and articulate debut album. Piedmont Avenue is cohesive in its conception, inspired in its execution and serves as an excellent introduction to the wonderfully original piano voice of John R. Burr.

When looking for expressive and uncommon sounds, Dolly Parton, Neil Young, Dan Seals, Hank Williams, Jr., Iris Dement and Glen Campbell all turned to the evocative sound of Gove Scrivenor’s autoharp. When Gove released early albums on Flying Fish Records, his friends, Doc Watson, John Hartford, Marty Stuart, Buddy Emmons…all lined up to contribute to his recordings.

Now joined by John Prine, Nanci Griffith and Lari White for his first Compass Records release Shine On, Gove has created a collection of five self-penned and selected favorites of fellow artists. Gove, once again, introduces songs that are full of life and energy and his very personal, soulful sound.

Gove moved to Nashville in the early 70’s after a four-year stint as a submarine sonar technician in the Navy. This move proved to be a wise one, as he was signed by the largest music publishing company in the world, Acuff-Rose. Wesley Rose saw in Gove the qualities that his struggling TRX record label needed, and Gove was soon signed to a recording contract as well as a songwriter agreement. Things began to happen. Scrivenor signed a management and booking deal with the Don Light Talent Agency in Nashville. During his years with Don Light, Gove toured with fellow agency artists Delbert McClinton and Jimmy Buffett and the Original Coral Reefer Band.

These successes opened doors for opportunities and he was soon performing on the popular PBS series Austin City Limits, where he appeared with The Amazing Rhythm Aces. His performance was splendid and he was asked to return again the following year for a show with Doc Watson. Bookings at colleges, festivals and clubs poured in and Gove soon found himself playing all over the US and Australia. Standing ovations and rave reviews were the order of the day, and then the bottom fell out of the Folk and Blues circuit with the advent of “alternative music” in the early ’80s.

Not one to be brought down, Scrivenor kept his optimistic attitude alive and settled right into Nashville. He established himself as a highly sought after sessions player and he met with continued success by singing many jingles, including the early Opryland campaigns for TV and Busch Beer.

Shine On follows the success of Gove’s two prior releases on Flying Fish Records. Shady Gove featured such masters as Doc Watson, John Hartford, Buddy Emmons and a host of others. It was the first of two highly regarded albums for the label. Coconut Gove, his second release, drew participation from such favorites as Marty Stuart, Ben Keith, and Dave Loggins. Solid Gove was re-released as a compilation on Rounder Records in February of 1998.

Gove Scrivenor’s music has been described as “high energy folk blues,” with inventive slide work and powerful vocals, tempered with singular work on the autoharp and beautiful ballads of his own writing. He’s well know for his magical rapport with audiences of all ages.

Scrivenor has experienced his share of luck, but this time, we’re the charmed ones. We’re provided with another unique opportunity to hear this master at work. To once again experience the thumping of our hearts dancing with joy to the rhythm of his beat.

Anything you want to call this is probably fine. It’s dusty rock’n’roll, or alternative country twice removed. Or it’s some kind of dislocated Heartland jangle blended with pathos, power pop and Peter Rowan.

Why Peter Rowan? “Because he’s God,” says Farmer not so John’s Richard McLaurin. “Mack and I worship that guy, and I instinctively knew he would dig our stuff.”

Indeed, Rowan liked the music. Ask him and he’ll tell you. The bluegrass legend sang with Mack Linebaugh and added his distinctive mandola to Receiver’s “Rise Above the Wreckage,” a song whose title is plainly appropriate for a band that has gone in a year’s time from an upstart Nashville quartet with a critically acclaimed self-titled album to a battle-scarred duo with a highly developed stubborn streak and an even better album.

Reasons for the crack-up and restructuring were multifold, predictable and somewhat acrimonious. The short story is former drummer Sean R. Keith became a father and wanted to get off the road. Former bass man Brian Ray had creative issues. Both of them contributed to Receiver. Neither will appear on tour with the band.

Want more biography? Okay. Linebaugh, a Nashville native and Hillsborough High School Class of ’88 graduate, grew up on R.E.M, Neil Young and Bruce Cockburn. He developed an early and ultimately temporary disdain for the country music his father enjoyed. McLaurin was born and reared in the flat, sandy Pee Dee region of South Carolina. He left Clemson University in the mid-1980’s, moved to Nashville without a job, and found touring gigs playing acoustic and electric guitar, lap steel, bass and/or mandolin with Vassar Clements, Maura O’Connell and Iris DeMent.

Then, in 1995, Linebaugh, Ray and Keith formed Farmer not so John. Further direction was established when McLaurin sat in on a practice one afternoon and joined that evening. The band secured a record deal with Compass, McLaurin produced the debut disc, publications from USA Today to Guitar Player took appreciative notice, and the group hopped in a van and began a year of bush league touring in hopes of giving legs to some major league songs.

“It was an odd year,” Linebaugh says. “There would be incredibly low moments of driving a long way for no money and no people. And then we’d go out and play the Bottom Line in New York and have a great response.”

One continuing annoyance was the insistence of some club owners to pair Farmer not so John with rockabilly, hillbilly, and psychobilly bands, as well as other combos of the retro-roots persuasion. The reason for the ill-conceived double bills was a misperception that Farmer not so John was an alternative country band. Linebaugh says this is mostly McLaurin’s fault.

“The only explanation I can think of is that we have a guy that plays steel and mandolin and grew up in South Carolina,” he says. “The whole alternative country thing is so problematic. Are we going to go back and revise history and move the Rolling Stones from Rock’n’Roll to alternative country just because they had some country-influenced songs? We’re a Southern band, but we didn’t grow up on country music, and I defy you to find a traditional country groove or progression anywhere on Receiver.”

Actually, McLaurin says there are three traditional country grooves and 1 1/2 country progressions on Receiver, though he won’t reveal their precise locations. The rest of the album is both a furtherance and a departure from the debut disc.

“We wanted to do a little metamorphosis,” McLaurin says. “This album is darker and more experimental. A lot of that is because of (producer) Tucker Martine, who is a mad scientist if there ever was one. We would do stuff like loop something I was playing on lap steel, using delay and reverb and Leslie effects and lots of tremelo. It ended up sounding real foreboding.”

We’ll skip the other “The Making of Receiver” inside-the-studio type stories, but you’re welcome to ask Mack or Richard about exploding amp cabinets, candle-lit drum booths, canine interruptions or vocal tracks marred by glancing blows from projectiles. You may also pose the “What was it like to work with…?” question as it pertains to special guest pals Rowan, Clive Gregson, Matthew Ryan, Daniel Tashian and Sean Ray.

But before you do any of that, give Receiver a spin. Mash the Repeat button if you like. This is an album textured enough to reward headphone listening and unruly enough for fast cars, high volumes or combinations thereof. It opens with the sweet air, warm wind and possibilities of “Paper Thin,” then takes a harrowing ride through the devastation that occurs when all of the above sour and chill and crumble. And then there are a couple of songs about women…

Clive Gregson and Christine Collister were the most moving and memorable U.K. folk-rock duo to emerge since Richard and Linda Thompson. Gregson’s wry tales of the ins and outs of love, sung in Collister’s heartbreaking voice have earned the duo (and subsequent solo work) respect and a devoted following, though commercial success and mainstream recognition have eluded them. Gregson (born January 4, 1955) was the founder of Any Trouble, a pub-rock/new wave quartet, in Manchester in 1975. The band’s sound, and Gregson’s songwriting and singing, reminded some of Elvis Costello, and Any Trouble was signed by Stiff, Costello’s label. The band made several well-remembered but poor-selling albums, then split up in 1984.

In 1984, Gregson discovered Collister singing in a folk club and, impressed by her talents, he offered to work with her on future projects. Gregson had already begun an association with Richard Thompson, initially singing backup on the classic Shoot Out the Lights album in 1982. While working on Thompson’s Hand of Kindness, Gregson suggested using Collister for additional backup vocal duties. The formula worked and the two continued for years as integral parts of the Richard Thompson touring band — arguably the finest live band he’s assembled. In 1985, Gregson made a solo album, Strange Persuasions, with Collister singing backup on a few tracks. The two began performing as a duo on the folk club circuit shortly thereafter. The duo’s first release was a homemade tape sold at gigs, later released as Home and Away. It was followed by their first formal album, Mischief, in 1987, and by a Change in the Weather in 1989. Love Is a Strange Hotel, released later the same year, was an album of cover versions of Gregson and Collister’s favorite songs. By 1992, the stress of constant touring and working together without substantial success finally took its toll on them. The two decided to go their separate ways after one parting shot, The Last Word, and on final tour. They both continued on as solo acts.

Gregson eventually relocated to Nashville and has been the more active of the two, releasing the live “official bootleg” Carousel of Noise on his own label in 1994, People & Places in 1995, and I Love This Town in 1996 for Compass Records, in addition to various production work and side collaborations with Boo Hewardine. Christine Collister continued to play the folk circuit, releasing a live album, Live, in 1995 and a new studio album, Blue Aconite, in 1997. In 1998, after a brief stint in the group Plainsong, Gregson returned with Happy Hour, and launched a successful tour of the UK with Hewardine and Edie Reader. Gregson’s 2002 release Comfort and Joy was followed by extensive touring, including rare jaunts to the United States and Japan, but in 2003 his career was put on hold for several months after a fall from a ladder resulted in a broken shoulder and arm. Thankfully, Gregson fully recovered, and returned with a low-key solo set, Long Story Short, in late 2004.

Bassist Todd Phillips’ musical pedigree is unbeatable. He staked his claim in musical history in 1975 as a member of the original Dave Grisman Quintet. He has performed and recorded with some of acoustic music’s most influential artists, including John Gorka, Montreux and Psychograss. On his latest solo album Timeframe, Phillips establishes himself as a multi-instrumentalist and composer capable of blending diverse influences into a seamless musical statement.

Phillips was born in San Jose, California in 1953. He began playing electric bass at age 11 and had his first professional studio recording experience when he was 15. Around the time that he graduated from high school he began playing the acoustic bass and developed an interest in bluegrass and jazz.

Soon afterwards, Phillips began studying with mandolinist David Grisman. This relationship quickly led to his involvement in the development of the original David Grisman Quintet. During his tenure with the group, Phillips had the opportunity to work with many well-known acoustic instrumentalists including Stephane Grappelli,Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, Tony Rice and Richard Greene. He credits the experience as having had tremendous influence on his musical growth. In particular, he says: “Spending so much time with Grisman when I was young both twisted and widened my perspectives (in a creative way) about all music.”

In 1984, Phillips recorded his first solo album Released which received critical acclaim. Billboard Magazine wrote: “Todd Phillips makes a winning new acoustic frontman.” The San Francisco Bay Guardian heralded Phillips as “one of the most meticulous and musically focused artists of the new acoustic musicmovement.” Phillips was also the 5-time recipient of the Frets Magazine readers’ poll award for Best Jazz and Bluegrass Bassist Grammy Award for his work with JD Crowe and the New South.

Throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s, Phillips continued to be involved in a variety of projects. Together with musical associates Mike Marshall and Darol Anger from the David Grisman Quintet, Phillips formed the eclectic jazzgrass group Psychograss. Theband recorded one album for Windham Hill which furthered their individual reputations as leading innovators in new acoustic music. Phillips also continued to build a successful career as a sessionmusician and appeared on dozens of recording projects including records by Alex de Grassi, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas and Tony Trischka.

In 1991, Phillips began composing and arranging music for Timeframe.His goal was to write, arrange and record in a way that incorporated as much of what he loves about music as possible. The end result is what Phillips labels a “musical hybrid” – a sound that is at once reminiscent of the west coast “cool jazz”scene, the bachelor pad sound, and the new acoustic movement, and draws inspiration from sources as unlikely as Bill Evans,John Coltrane, Steely Dan, Joseph Haydn and Bill Monroe. Together with reed master Paul McCandless (Oregon), violinist Darol Anger (Turtle Island String Quartet), Joe Caploe on vibes and drummer Paul van Wageningen, Phillips delivers a focused and assured take on acoustic jazz which the Nashville Scene described as “music that’s both accessible and beautiful while remaining constantly surprising and fresh.”

Featuring Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, Make Marshall, Stuart Duncan, and Clive Gregson, Leslie Tucker’s debut is an sincere, earnest masterpiece of confident, genuine songwriting.

“I would pay to hear Leslie sing from the index of a computer manual.” – Tim O’Brien

“That kind of honesty can’t be made up – it has to be lived.” – Pierce Pettis

Through the Round Window, the solo debut of renowned tenor banjo player Éamonn Coyne, is a rare achievement. Using his masterful technique as a foundation, Coyne builds a musical bridge between the traditional Irish sounds of his upbringing and his other, more international influences. The high esteem Coyne commands in Irish music circles is reflected in the clarity, precision, and impeccable timing of each note he plays. Wherever his vast musical imagination takes him, the power and resonance of his ingrained heritage shines through. The result is a remarkable album that explores new terrain for the Irish tenor banjo while radiating the warmth and integrity of a centuries-old musical lineage.

“Over the years,” Coyne explains, “I have been lucky enough to experience lots of different types of music. I wanted to record a CD to explore some of these influences on my playing. Through the Round Window comes from the music of these different sources passing from me through the main instrument I play, the Irish tenor banjo – whether it be Donegal fiddle music, Irish box and flute playing, or old-timey American fiddle and banjo tunes.”

Channeling Coyne’s eclectic tastes through his own virtuosity on the tenor banjo lends Through the Round Window a freshness that never sounds incongruent – even at its most far-reaching. On the more traditional side are “Whistling Reels,” a set recorded with flautist Michael McGoldrick, “Mazurka & Jigs,” which combines a Donegal-styled mazurka with a pair of jigs, and the languid “Tommy & Jerry,” which ingeniously blends tunes from Tommy Peoples (in a highland style) and two Cape Breton tunes from Jerry Holland.

Careful sequencing allows Through the Round Window to unfold gracefully, the more adventurous excursions beautifully balanced by the invigoratingly executed traditional fare. One of the threads unifying Through the Round Window is the interrelation between different cultures. Nowhere is that give-and-take better demonstrated than on “Nine String Susannah,” a trio of American old-tyme fiddle tunes played as a duet with Grammy-winning 5-string banjoist Alison Brown. Kevin Doherty, of the acclaimed eclectic Celtic band Four Men and a Dog, contributes two original compositions that combine the soulfulness of classic balladry with a contemporary edge.

All of the performances on Through the Round Window sparkle with empathy and audible camaraderie between the players. “That’s because this CD has come together thanks to the great friends I have,” Éamonn Coyne says with a smile, “who happen to be musicians.” That sound – of good friends, good taste, and good times – is what, more than anything, makes Through the Round Window such a gem.

Fiddlers 4 is a gathering of some of today’s most celebrated fiddlers. Michael Doucet is well loved for his work as the leader of Cajun supergroup Beausoleil. Darol Anger, a veteran of the David Grisman Quintet and founding member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, is the leading exponent of jazz-hued newgrass. Bruce Molsky is internationally revered as a leading old time fiddler and Rashad Eggleston, a hot newcomer cellist, is lauded for his scorching hot technique. Each has made a major musical statement and helped revolutionize their field, inspiring numerous emulators and new genres. Their repertoire spans a heroic reach of American culture, covering the spectrum of American fiddle, from the oldest dance tunes to sophisticated jazz sounds, with singing and stories.

On their debut album, these four master musicians create a cross-cultural fiddling extravaganza, with stops in the Louisiana bayou, the Appalachian mountains and the Marin foothills. On tracks such as You Little Wild Thing (La Betaille), Cajun master Michael Doucet sings with the passion that launched his group Beausoleil to the forefront of Cajun music makers. Pickin’ the Devil’s Eye is an adaptation of the old time standard that gives each fiddler a chance to dazzle. Fiddler players across the world are coming together and realizing the great potential of fiddle music to move and inspire all ages. In this spirit, these influential and accomplished musicians have joined forces to create something beautiful and new out of very old cloth.

Darol Anger has changed bluegrass and jazz fiddling by blending elements of the two, just as swing fiddlers did in the mid-fifties, by using modern harmonies and rhythms. Violinist, fiddler, composer, producer and educator, he is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. With the jazz-oriented Turtle Island String Quartet, Anger developed and popularized new techniques for playing contemporary styles on string instruments. The virtuoso ‘Chambergrass’ groups Psychograss and NewGrange, his highly lauded partnership and duo creations with string master Mike Marshall, and the plugged-in Anger-Marshall Band feature his compositions and arrangements. His Grammy-nominated folk-jazz group Montreux provided one of the original musical models for the New Adult Contemporary radio format. The David Grisman Quintet forged a new genre of acoustic string band music with Darol’s ‘fertile inventiveness, surprising touches and technical mastery’ often in the forefront.”

Michael Doucet brought Cajun Music out of obscurity to joyful public acclaim. Michael’s super-charged fiddling and singing powers his two-time Grammy award-winning group Beausoleil, by far the best known Cajun band in the world. With his constant research and vast knowledge of Acadian history, Michael has not only preserved an essential part of American culture, but moved it forward into the mainstream. Beausoleil, now in its 25th year and a regular guest on NPR’s Prairie Home Companion, composed and played the music for the feature film Belizaire The Cajun, and has released a score of best-selling recordings on Arhoolie and Rhino Records.

Bruce Molsky has been dubbed the “Rembrandt of Appalachian Fiddling” for his brilliant mastery of regional styles, encyclopedic knowledge of tunes, and especially his supercharged and entirely personal rhythm, which has been known to break glass, explode closed containers, and compel dionisian episodes of involuntary dancing. Renowned musicians Tommy Jarrell and Albert Hash were two of Bruce’s mentors in the Blue Ridge Mountains where Bruce learned to play. He has been featured in Acoustic Guitar, Fiddler Magazine, Dirty Linen, Acoustic Musician, and other magazines. His three recordings on Rounder Records have created an unprecedented stir in the rapidly growing world of old-time music, and he is accomplished on guitar, banjo, and vocals.

Rushad Eggleston is an enormously talented cello player, a master of improvisation and fiddle styles on a relatively unwieldy instrument and has already done things that nobody has done with the cello. He was the first stringed instrument student admitted to the prestigious Berklee School Of Music on a full scholarship. A newcomer to the professional community, Rushad brings an element to Fiddlers 4 that helps make the dream of a truly masterful American Vernacular String Quartet a reality.

To the musical question of our time, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Alan and John Kelly can each answer, “Right here.” The pure-drop playing of Alan on piano accordion and John, his younger brother, on flute and whistle can be likened to the impact of that movie soundtrack. Fourmilehouse is traditional music served straight up, with no need for studio sweeteners or sleight of hand, and harks back to a time when Irish music, like American old-timey and early country music, had a back-porch ease belying considerable skill.

Such skill runs deep in the family of Alan and John Kelly, who were born in Roscommon town. Their grandfather was a fiddler; their grandmother, a melodeon player; their father, Frank Kelly, a piano accordionist from Fourmilehouse in southern Roscommon who won the All-Ireland senior title in 1964; and their mother, Mary ( Ryan) Kelly, an adept pianist and saxophonist. From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, Frank and Mary Kelly were members of the Killina C Band, a gifted ensemble also featuring fiddler Paddy Ryan, a first cousin of Mary and a music instructor to both Alan and John.

“When we were children, Paddy and my father gave us th e encouragement and the rudiments for playing,” Alan explained. “We used old notation from Paddy for a lot of the tunes we recorded on Fourmilehouse.” John drolly added that “we hadn’t played some of those tunes in years, so we had to learn them all over again.”

Learning tunes and honing technique came rapidly for both brothers. Alan found his first piano accordion, an old Paolo Soprani model won by his dad in a raffle, tucked in a turf shed. Besides his father, he counts former Silly Wizard member Phil Cunningham as a prime reason for taking up the instrument. “I heard Phil play the piano accordion one night on Radio One and couldn’t believe how much music he got out of it,” Alan recalled. His brother John points to Mary Bergin as the main influence on his whistle playing and to Roscommon’s Patsy Hanley, John Carlos, and Frank Jordan as the principal influences on his flute playing.

This album captures the two brothers in peak performance. It is the first full-bore recording by John, who previously guested on a few tracks of his brother’s solo albums, Out of the Blue in 1996 and Mosaic in 2000. Alan’s other recording credits include appearances on Niamh Parsons’s Loosely Connected in 1992, Michael McGoldrick’s Morning Rory in 1996 and Fused in 2000, and Seán Keane’s Seansongs in 2002. He also played for such acclaimed theatrical productions as Brian Friel’s Wonderful Tennessee and Mabou Mines’s Peter & Wendy.

The repertoire Alan and John have chosen is a deft blend of unaging standards, such as “The Duke of Leinster” reel that Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman made popular in 1927, and more recent tunes destined to become standards, such as Liz Carroll’s “Diplodocus” reel, Pat Crowley’s “Harp and Shamrock” hornpipe, and Billy McComiskey’s “Palm Tree” reel. Some evergreen compositions of Newtown, County Tipperary’s Paddy O’Brien (1922-1991) also make the mix that much more appealing, and the support the Kellys get from guitarist Arty McGlynn, percussionist Jim Higgins, organist/pianist Rod McVey, bouzouki player Cyril O’Donoghue, banjoist/pianist Brian McGrath, and bodhrán player John Moloney is exemplary.

For Alan and John Kelly, Fourmilehouse proves you can go home again musically. What a stunning duet album these talented brothers have given us.”
– from the liner notes by Earle Hitchner

Cara Dillon seems to have seduced the entire nation in just a few short, breathtaking, eventful years. Make that several nations, for among the rare ingredients of her irresistibly natural personality and mesmerising ability to relate a great story in song, is an all-embracing quality that defies borders, cultures, and even languages.

Born in 1975 in Dungiven, Co. Derry, Ireland, Cara demonstrated her striking vocal ability in winning the All Ireland Traditional Singing Trophy at the tender age of 14 and a year later she was in her first band, Oige. They were pretty successful too. She went on to sing with De Dannan and then folk supergroup, Equation, joining the latter in 1995 as a replacement to Kate Rusby.

Equation (signed to Blanco Y Negro, WEA) seemed to be heading for the top, but the album they recorded ’Return To Me’ didn’t get a release. However, Cara had found her soulmate Sam Lakeman in the band and the pair decided to try their luck as a duo. They re-signed to Blanco and there followed a long and frustrating period as they experimented with writing and recording songs with a succession of top producers and songwriters around the world. However, none of the projects and collaborations seemed to fulfill the inner visions that Cara and Sam had developed, so after six years of being tied to a major label, they decided to abandon ship and set sail on their own. The world is glad they did.

“Cara Dillon, is without exaggeration, amongst the very finest to be heard today.”
– Folk Roots

“Blessed with a voice of unearthly beauty” – Sunday Herald

“Every so often a singer comes along and stops me in my tracks making me look at music in a slightly different light.”- The Living Tradition

The Matt Flinner Trio has mastered the craft of composing music “on the go.” The group practices a unique approach—writing in hotel rooms, dressing rooms, on airplanes and in the back of tour vans—and debuting the new pieces the same night. Sonically founded in bluegrass, jazz and American acoustic music, the virtuosic collaboration between esteemed mandolinist Matt Flinner, guitarist Ross Martin and bassist Eric Thorin, is a finely tuned composition machine.  Now with over two hundred tunes in their repertoire, the trio will release Winter Harvest this January 31st, a road-crafted sequel to their 2009 release, Music Du Jour.

“We’re building on what we started with Music Du Jour, debuting tunes the day they were written. But I think Winter Harvest is a more mature CD; we’ve done close to seventy of these shows now, so we’re getting to choose fifteen tunes out of two hundred and six. We wanted to choose the few tunes that really defined the group and where we’d gone.”

Stylistically, the group is self-defined as “deeply-rooted new acoustic music,” a GRAMMY-nominated mandolinist Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Whether it’s with his own Matt Flinner Trio or with Phillips, Grier and Flinner, the Frank Vignola Quartet, Darrell Scott, Steve Martin, the Ying Quartet, Tim O’Brien, Leftover Salmon or the Modern Mandolin Quartet, Flinner’s style and compositional ability have established him as one of the most accomplished and musically diverse mandolinists in the world.

Starting out as a banjo prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the National Banjo Competition in Winfield, KS in 1990, and won the mandolin award there the following year.  Matt now tours regularly with the Matt Flinner Trio, which is known for its off-the-cuff compositional daring, writing music the same day it’s performed on most of their shows. He also tours regularly with the Modern Mandolin Quartet, which was nominated for three Grammy awards for their CD Americana in 2013. Over the last several years, Flinner has become known as one of the leading writers of instrumental music in the acoustic world, and his background in classical composition has led him into new avenues in both classical and string band music.  Some of Flinner’s longer-form compositions have been performed by the Ying Quartet, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Chatterbird, the Expedition Quintet and the Modern Mandolin Quartet.  Flinner currently lives in Nashville, TN.