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Faculty
Mike Compton – Camp Director and one of the leading mandolin players of our time, was born in 1956 in Jimmie Rodger’s hometown of Meridian, MS. He was exposed to string band music at an early age - he got his first mandolin at the age of 15 and moved to Nashville in 1977 to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time musician. Over the course of the next 30 years Mike would work with legendary North Carolina banjoist Hubert Davis, renowned guitarist Davis Grier, singer/songwriter musician/legend John Hartford, David Long, and the inimitable Nashville Bluegrass Band, as well as appear on nearly 100 recordings to date. Mike was fortunate enough to be a part of the 2001 smash soundtrack to the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” for which he won Grammy acknowledgement. He also participated in the “Down From the Mountain” tours, which included artists Ralph Stanley, Norman and Nancy Blake, Alison Kraus, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Emmy Lou Harris, The Whites, The Cox Family, Chris Thomas King, Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, Del McCoury and Rodney Crowell. Mike also participated in the “Cold Mountain” soundtrack produced by TBone Burnette. The Mississippi State Senate honored Mike in 2002 with State Resolution No. 45 commending his accomplishments. Mike works at camps and workshops throughout the year and also teaches weekly via the internet. Mike is also working on solo/duet/trio material, country blues mandolin styles, guitar, mandola, and of course, a gaining a better understanding of the music of Bill Monroe.
Instruments:
2002 Gilchrist F5 #536
2003 Gilchrist F4 #565
2008 Duff Mandola #133
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Dr. Richard Brown - The associate director of the Monroe-Style Mandolin Camp is the principal spokesperson for The Reunion Band, based in Cambridge, MA, Richie is one of the leading Monroe-style mandolin players in New England. He sings both lead and baritone vocals with the group and plays guitar as well as mandolin. Other credits include work with the Connecticut-based Apple Country in the late 1970s and with New England legends Bob and Grace French in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Richie also teaches at Mandolin Camp North. A practicing dentist by profession, he also serves on the faculty at Harvard University School of Dental Medicine.
Instruments he will be using:
Gibson, Fern 1927
Gilchrist, Model 5 2003
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Skip Gorman-As a teenager, Skip was fortunate enough to sit down with Bill Monroe on a number of occasions. He credits Monroe with teaching him the importance of melody and of "listening close." Ever since, he has been playing the bluegrass and oldtimey styles of mandolin. For 48 years, he has worked to capture the essence of the older roots sounds of American rural folk music. His accomplishments as a fiddle player and singer of southern ballads and ballads of the early American West have helped guide the traditional flavor of his mandolin interpretations. Skip has also taught mandolin and fiddle at Augusta Heritage, Swanannoa and Old Time Music Camp North with Mike Seeger and Sam Bush, Mike Compton and Roland White. He has appeared on workshops with Ronnnie McCoury, Chris Thiele, Butch Baldesari, Norman Blake and Rhonda Vincent. An early member of Utah's Desert String Band in the 1970s, Skip continues to perform old-time bluegrass with Richard Starkey as part of the bluegrass duo, "Rabbit In A Log." He has several award-winning recordings (1996 NAIRD award for "Lonesome Prairie Love" - Rounder) on the Old West, Rounder, Folk Legacy, No Part A Nothin', and Columbia Legacy labels. Skip has appeared on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and Ken Burns used his music in two of his documentary films: "Baseball" and "Lewis and Clark." Skip's most recent mandolin recordings are "Old Style Mandolin," "Monroesque," and "Mandolin In The Cow Camp."
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Tim O Brien-A native of West Virginia, Tim heard his first Bob Dylan tune at age 12, played by his sister Mollie. He decided to take up music. Throughout his teens, he taught himself to play mandolin, guitar, and fiddle. As a kid of the 1950s he had his ears wide open to the country and bluegrass melting pot on the local WWVA as well as the Beatles on the radio. In 1973, he dropped out of college to pursue music professionally. He wrote to his mother at the time, saying, “I’m heading west. I know 200 songs now, and I figure if I keep learning more I should be all right.” He moved on to Boulder, CO in the 70s, where he met Pete Wernick, Charles Sawtelle, and Nick Forster, forming Hot Rize in 1978. Over the next twelve years, the quartet earned recognition as one of America's most innovative and entertaining bluegrass bands. Never straying too far from a traditional sound, Hot Rize stood out with fresh harmony singing, Wernick's melodic banjo playing, and O'Brien's easy-going rhythmic drive. To broaden their repertoire, the members of Hot Rize would often split their show with a set of classic and offbeat country and western music in the comic guise of Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. The band would walk off stage, change clothes, and reappear as a different band (O'Brien assumed the mantle of "Red Knuckles"), with its own songs, fictional back story and odd costumes. Hot Rize was the International Bluegrass Music Association's first Entertainer of the Year in 1990, and in 1993, O'Brien took the IBMA's Male Vocalist of the Year honors. He has released 13 records under his own name (winning a 2006 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album with Fiddler's Green), and three with his sister Mollie O'Brien. Hear Tim O’Brien’s mandolin on myspace, #2, Megna’s”
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Jody Stecher-For the past half century Jody Stecher’s music has been an inspiring influence spanning generations and continents. He is a renowned singer and multi-instrumentalist whose recordings have been Grammy finalists, Indy Award winners and perennial favorites. Reviewers write of his “ability to capture the essence and core of traditional music” or “to crystalize the spiritual essence of a song while making it his own”. Jody has been playing mandolin since age 12 and bluegrass since age 14. These days he plays mandolin and mandola with the following: Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Perfect Strangers, Kleptograss, and with his wife and singing partner Kate Brislin. Jody is regarded as one of the leading traditional folk artists in America. His recordings have served a large and diverse group of musicians, including Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Martin Simpson, Seldom Scene, Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, Alasdair Fraser and Hot Rize. David Bromberg once said, "Jody Stecher was basically my teacher. He opened my ears to more beautiful music than anyone else ever did... more than I ever knew existed. I have never known anyone so intensely and completely enveloped in music. It's my suspicion that if you drained all the music out of Jody, you could carry what was left around in an eye dropper."
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Butch Waller-Butch Waller was one of the initial handful of Northern California musicians to play bluegrass music. Inspired by the music of Bill Monroe and other first generation bands, Butch and friends formed the Pine Valley Boys, one of the first bluegrass bands on the Northern California scene, in the early 1960’s. By 1968, High Country, California’s most enduring bluegrass band, was born, and continues to play straight ahead traditional bluegrass with Butch at the helm. Butch, long a keeper of the Monroe-style mandolin flame, appears on numerous High Country recordings. Two recent releases include his solo effort on Rebel Records entitled, “Golden Gate Promenade” and “The Old Photograph” with his brother, Bob Waller. Butch is a veteran on the faculty of the Monroe-Style Mandolin Camp, as well as the California Bluegrass Association's Music Camp, where he has also taught Monroe-style mandolin.
He plays a Stan Miller F-5.
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Former Blue Grass Boy Tom Ewing, performer at All-Star Faculty Concert
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