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Russ Barenberg – bio Barenberg began playing guitar at the age of 13 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia. He took lessons from Alan Miller, the older brother of future band mate, guitarist John Miller, and was inspired early on by guitarists Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Clarence White along with a wide range of old-time, bluegrass and contemporary folk and blues artists. While attending Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, in 1970, Barenberg joined with Peter Wernick, Tony Trischka, Kenny Kosek and John Miller to form Country Cooking. During the four years that Country Cooking was together, the group recorded two influential albums, Country Cooking: 14 Bluegrass Instrumentals and Barrel of Fun and accompanied mandolinist Frank Wakefield on a third album. Barenberg also played on a number of Trischka's solo albums throughout the 1970's. After Country Cooking disbanded in 1975, Barenberg temporarily switched to electric guitar and performed with a jazz-rock band, Carried Away. In 1977 he moved to New York and, together with Trischka, Miller, and fiddler Matt Glaser, formed the eclectic string band, Heartlands. Heartlands backed Barenberg on many of the cuts on Cowboy Calypso. Moving to Boston in 1979, he joined Glaser and fiddler/mandolinist Jay Ungar in the triple-fiddle band Fiddle Fever, recording two albums with the group. Fiddle Fever's recording of "Ashokan Farewell" was later used as the centerpiece for the soundtrack to Ken Burns' celebrated documentary, The Civil War. Barenberg played on the soundtracks for several other Burns' films as well, including The Brooklyn Bridge, The Shakers and Huey Long. During this time, he also worked with Glaser and mandolinist Andy Statman in the experimental bluegrass-jazz band Laughing Hands. Barenberg recorded his second solo album, Behind the Melodies, in 1983. That album, along with his appearance on Jerry Douglas's 1982 release, Fluxedo, marked the beginnings of an ongoing series of collaborations between the two musicians. While in Boston, Barenberg was also active in the vibrant contradance scene, playing frequently for dances. He played on fiddler Rodney Miller's recording, Airplang, which was seminal to the development of contradance music in the late 80's and 90's. A number of Barenberg's own tunes have since become popular standards in the contradance repertoire. Barenberg moved to Nashville in 1986 and has lived there since. Along with Douglas, he worked for several years accompanying Irish singer, Maura O'Connell, and in 1988 recorded his third solo album, Moving Pictures, another beautiful collection of original instrumentals featuring Douglas, Meyer, banjoist Bela Fleck, and fiddlers Mark O'Connor and Stuart Duncan, among others. The previously mentioned trio with Douglas and Meyer, active throughout the 1990's, was a highly original ensemble that further reshaped the direction of acoustic music. Their popular 1993 recording, Skip, Hop & Wobble, has been extremely influential with the a new generation of acoustic instrumentalists. In 1996 Barenberg worked with Douglas, fiddler Darol Anger and Los Angeles-based music producer Snuffy Walden to create the soundtrack for Homecoming, a film starring Anne Bancroft. Barenberg has performed and recorded with many other top acoustic and country music artists including Randy Travis, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O'Brien, Sam Bush, Paul Brady, Darryl Scott, Joan Osborne, Bryan Sutton, Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, Eddi Reader, Natalie McMaster and Sharon Shannon. Many of these musical associations came about through his ongoing work on The Transatlantic Sessions, a series of television shows produced in Scotland beginning in 1994 that bring together top acoustic musicians from the British Isles and the United States for collaborative performances. The third and most recent group of Transatlantic Sessions was filmed in March 2007. Barenberg currently freelances in Nashville and performs with his own group as well as in a duo with guitarist Bryan Sutton. His 2007 release on Compass Records is described well by music writer Jon Weisberger: "...while ensemble interplay is the foundation of When at Last , its heart and soul ultimately is to be found in Barenberg's tunes--some dating back to the early 90s, others composed shortly before recording began--and in his glistening playing. Few guitarists so perfectly blend a mastery of roots music traditions with melodic originality, or so finely balance muscularity with delicacy, and each moment of the album is shaped by these artistic dualities..." Go to Russ Barenberg's website. Bryan Sutton – bio Five-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year, Bryan Sutton was born near Asheville, NC. He picked up the guitar at the age of eight, initially immersed in rock and jazz playing, but soon captivated by the rhythms and melodies of bluegrass. After high school, Sutton toured for two years before landing in Nashville and joining Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder for their landmark Bluegrass Rules album. Since leaving Kentucky Thunder in 1999, he has become one of the most in-demand guitarists in bluegrass, both on the road and in the studio, earning him three Grammy Awards. His lengthy list of collaborators includes the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, Mark O'Connor, Hot Rize, Chris Thile, Bela Fleck, and Jerry Douglas. Bryan's latest CD for Sugar Hill Records, Not Too Far from the Tree, features duets with many of his heroes and friends. Though it features some of the greatest, iconic bluegrass guitarists in history (Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, David Grier, among others), Sutton's new CD is a tribute to the kind of personal, spontaneous music making that often happens when guitarists get together to jam informally. "I wanted to get out of the studios, out of the sterility of standard record making," he says "and capture as much of the music on my own as possible, so I decided to go to people's homes. "I really like the musical conversation that goes on in a duet," he continues. "I like the reactions, and with this record I tried to capture as much of those nuances as possible. In a duo, you have the freedom to go as far as each person is willing to go. You have this great possibility to get one sound, one voice. The guitar has such a wide tonal range that in a good duet situation you don't miss anything, you don't want for bass or the mandolin chop or anything. You've got plenty of sustain and rhythm, all that stuff. When you get a trio, suddenly you have different roles to play. And in a band everybody has their specific part to do at any give moment. But with a duet you can constantly change dynamics and it's completely free." Sutton not only wanted to showcase his heroes, but also demonstrate just how his own playing as evolved under their influence. However, far from aping his partners, he simply listens and reacts, allowing the music to grow naturally. "There's a conscious level when I'm playing with these guys, where I'll be inspired to do something just because I hear it," he says. "I'm a real reactionary player. When I hear something, whether it be a cool lick from Norman or some weird chord voicing that David Grier is doing, it's going to inspire me to go somewhere spontaneously. It's all improv on that level. But there's also subconscious stuff that happens, little intercommunication things, rhythmic things, the general pocket and groove. I feel like we were able to capture the sound of two guitars sounding like one big instrument, and a lot of that happens subconsciously, where you're really trying to dig into the groove of what's going on - trying to complement the duet partner, whoever that might be. So the influence isn't demonstrated by me playing the same licks that I'd just heard, but in nuances of feel and tone, very subtle kinds of things. "I never was one to really study other players. I didn't transcribe Tony Rice solos as a kid, but I would try to listen to the feel of what Tony Rice did and try to capture the crux of the intent of what was going on. The whole Not Too Far from the Tree idea reflects that, in that I'm obviously of that, and I do my own thing, but I know where it came from, and I don't take any of it for granted." Go to Bryan Sutton's website. |
