Mark O'Conner unleashed at 15! Vince Gill at 18! Monte is busted sharing music!

Telluride Bluegrass Festival

*** should be renamed to ***

Sam Bush Telluride Newgrass Festival

let's tell them! e-mail them!
marketing@bluegrass.com

the King is on the left and the Godfather is on the right

Sam Bush and John Hartford -- Telluride Festival very early years

John Hartford
is the Godfather

John Hartford biography

John Hartford Memorial Festival

According to Sam Bush,
"Without John's Aereo-Plane album, there would be no ‘newgrass’ music."

Sam Bush
is the King

John Hartford, Sam Bush, Pete Wernick

For awhile, I did soundwork w/ bands - '74 to '77. Country Comfort, Bluegrass Alliance, Lazy River, to name a few. I was roommates with Bill Millet, Vince Gill, Al White, Eric Levine and many others. This included living in, or spending lots of time at, Harry Bickel's house in Louisville '75 to '77 - "Bickel's place." Get the pdf about Bickel's place. Harry Sparks visited there often. This is where Sam Bush and others would go to get their precious musical instruments repaired. Harry Sparks and Harry Bickel had a great repair shop setup in the basement. Bickel improved his skills from Sparky, who was a wizard repairman - very highly regarded. Sparky was also building mandolins.

Doc Hamilton, Harry Sparks, Harry Bickel inside Bickel's place - 1977

Many, many dozens of times - at Bickel's place - the Boys were there. Over time - all of them were at Bickel's place - picking, jamming, buzzing, hanging out, and cutting up. I was sitting right there. Not to mention all the great live music everywhere. I was hanging around all the musicians, often helping out with sound equipment and PA Systems. Holy crap. I saw the Newgrass Revival dozens of times back then. Night after sizzling night - at The Mason Jar - I believe it was on Bardstown Rd - in Louisville. Oh yeah, I also remember all the televised baseball games there - The Big Red Machine - w/ Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, George Foster, Ken Griffey, and all the boys. Awesome and very exciting baseball team. And throw in 2 Kentucky Derbys. I totally lucked out in Life.

Here is some amazing Mark O' Connor and some 18-year-old Vince Gill. I have Bluegrass Alliance tapes, Newgrass Revival tapes, Vassar, Hartford, Norman and Tut, and a whole bunch more -- link to my Taper's Home page. The downloads are listed for you. Fasten your seatbelt! Enjoy the music. My personal vault is dusted off, having popped a few rivots after 40 years.

Below these items, I've found some killer Sam Bush w/String Cheese Incident, and a Y2k new year's eve meltdown by Leftover Salmon w/Sam Bush, John Cowan and Peter Rowan sitting in.

Mark O'Connor with Lazy River, 15 years old, unleashed!

SBD mix and recording by Monte
Tapco 16-channel SBD > Nakamichi 550 cassette deck, w/dolby > Gateway GT5238E pc

Great Midwestern Music Hall
Louisville, Kentucky in fall, 1976
the boys
Mark O'Connor plays violin, and is also featured here on guitar
Bill Millet, lead vocals, banjo, and rhythm guitar behind Mark O'Connor's guitar
Bob Briedenbach, lead vocals, dobro, lap steel and pedal steel guitars
Eric Weber, lead vocals, mandolin
Johnny Beaser on electric bass
Frank Heyer on electric guitar (from St Louis)
Bruce Cromer sitting in on clarinet
Pat O'Conner - drums

Notes:
banjo is mic'd inside / under the resonator

Mark O'Connor was 15 years old this night. I remember him being there, travelling from Seattle with his mom. He spoke often about his skateboard setup in his back yard. He was a skateboard master too. No kidding. Mark had won the Winfield Kansas Nat'l guitar and violin championships the past two years, when he was 13 and 14. If I remember correctly, the reknowned Winfield Nat'l Championships rules didn't allow you to win with the same instrument, 2 years in a row. So Mark O'Connor won the violin championship in 1974. and he won the guitar flat-pick championship in 1975. In 1977, Mr. Mark O'Connor won both violin and guitar flat-pick championships at Winfield Kansas Championships. Here's his winner's list.

On this 1976 night Mark plays several personal firsts on stage with his violin:
a) Swing music. He had recently been listening to Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti.
b) electronic sound effects
c) other non-Bluegrass tunes

Be sure to hear Mark play guitar here on the 2 Rags -- slam-Cotton Patch and dunk-Beaumont! Super clean sound. Remarkable guitar playing! Mark O'Connor is an American Master and a national treasure. The fumble by Bill Millet at the top of the guitar track gives us a timeless belly laugh. We were having some 420 issues outside, during the break, just preceeding.

stream or download this show
bit torrent for this show

d1t01 - Bluegrass instrumental
d1t02 - I Know What it Means to be Lonesome
d1t03 - Satin Doll
d1t04 - Steam Powered Aereoplane
d1t05 - Sunny Side of the Mountain
d1t06 - Midnight Moonlight
d1t07 - Undecided
d1t08 - Sweet Georgia Brown
d1t09 - Sittin' on Top of the World
d1t10 - Sweetheart of Mine
d1t11 - Take the A Train
d1t12 - Dixie Blues
d1t13 - Hey Good Lookin'
d1t14 - Salty Dog
d2t01 - Sally Goodin'
d2t02 - Las Vegas

Set 2:
d2t03 - Cotton Patch Rag and Beaumont Rag
d2t04 - Ain't Misbehaving
d2t05 - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
d2t06 - Take Me Back to Tulsa
d2t07 - After You've Gone
d2t08 - Friend of the Devil -> Blackberry Blossom
d2t09 - Beaumont Rag
d2t10 - Big River
d2t11 - Milk Cow Blues
d3t01 - Summertime
d3t02 - Time Changes Everything
d3t03 - Tiger Rag

Mark O'Connor encore

Vince Gill, 18 years old, with the original Lazy River

John Jump, Robert Pool, Vince Gill, Bill Millet, Bob Briedenbach

SBD mix and recording by Monte
Tapco 16-channel SBD > Nakamichi 550 cassette deck, w/dolby > Gateway GT5238E pc

Oak Street Pub
Birmingham, Alabama
late summer gig, 1976
the boys
Vince Gill, lead vocals, electric mandolin, fiddle, guitar
John Jump, lead vocals, accoustic and electric guitars
Bobby Briedenbach, lead vocals, pedal steel guitar, lap steel guitar, dobro
Bill Millet, vocals, banjo, guitar
Johnny Beaser, electric bass

stream or download this show
bit torrent for this show

Set 1
d1t02 - I Know What it Means to be Lonesome
d1t03 - I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
d1t04 - Ground Speed
d1t05 - Good Woman's Love
d1t06 - Dixie Blues
d1t07 - One of These Days
d1t08 - Salty Dog
d1t09 - Panhandle Rag
d1t10 - Louise
d1t11 - Uncle Pen -> Sally Goodin'
d1t12 - Big River
d1t13 - Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
d1t14 - Beaumont Rag
d1t15 - Milk Cow Blues
d1t16 - Hey Good Lookin'
d1t17 - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

Set 2:
d1t18 - Las Vegas
d2t01 - You Won't Be Satisfied That Way
d2t02 - Orange Blossom Special
d2t03 - Sitting on Top of the World
d2t04 - I Gotta Get Drunk
d2t05 - Wheel Hoss
d2t06 - Sweetheart of Mine
d2t07 - That Promised Land
d2t08 - Chop those Cotton Balls
d2t09 - Take Me Back to Tulsa
d2t10 - Tennessee Blues
d2t11 - Why You've Been Gone So Long
d2t12 - My Window Faces the South
d2t13 - Cowboy Song
d2t14 - Foggy Mountain Breakdown
d2t15 - Uncle Woodrow
d2t16 - Up That Lazy River

That Promised Land, Cowboy Song, and Uncle Woodrow are originals by John Jump

imho, Vince Gill vocals shine on Tennessee Blues, Good Woman's Love and Milk Cow Blues.

The very-short-lived Lazy River band morphed quickly, and went out with a bang. All that talent with Vince Gill and the boys, and next-to-no gigs. Vince went on to play with Byron Berline's band, Sundance. Then on to Pure Prarie League after that. At the same time Vince left the band, John Jump also left. He moved back to St Louis, or Kirkwood, MO.

John and Bob played with the Road Apples in St Louis before coming to Louisville. John Jump's original Cowboy Song could have been perhaps as good as many tunes Willie Nelson has written. Check it out. Sweet.

Before playing in Lazy River these 5 played in the Bluegrass Alliance, only to quit from Lonnie Peerce in 1976, exactly as the original Newgrass Revival had done in 1971.

Vince Gill and the Bluegrass Alliance band • Million Dollar Cowboy Bar • Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- July 1976 photo depicts my modified Bose 901 white speaker cabinets (rewired to match Bose 800) -

photo credit: "the wives" Diane Jump and Laura Briedenbach (Monte Barry was soundman)

Here's an historic film clip of Bluegrass Alliance playing One Tin Soldier in 1971 at a festival. The band members are Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Courtney Johnson, Ebo Walker, and Lonnie Peerce.

Bonus 5-star music for you

Bluegrass Alliance - September 23, 1975 - Louisville
my Great Midwestern Bluegrass Music Hall sound board tape

Newgrass Revival - September 28, 1975 - Louisville
my Bluegrass Renaissance tape - sound board patch provided by Hazel Johnson

Sam Bush w/String Cheese Incident
Merlefest 2000

San Jose
Stingray
Steampowered Aereoplane > Jam > Birdland
Round the Wheel > One Love

Birdland encore
Telluride Bluegrass Festival
June 18, 1999
String Cheese Incident w/Jerry Douglas on dobro

how to play Shortens

how to play Flacs

Leftover Salmon and Friends
y2k meltdown at the Fillmore, Denver, CO

over 50 tunes
Stingray is the meltdown!
Sam Bush, John Cowan and Peter Rowan sitting in on many of them.

I wish there was a way to bring back
John Hartford and Jerry Garcia.

Remember this?

Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements

one of My favorite versions of
Sugaree

Grateful Dead - 1974
wall of sound

wall of sound docs and pics

CBS Documentary Hippie Temptation - 1967

PBS Documentary Summer of Love - 1967

ZIPPED photo collection for Dead-Heads -- 937 JPG images spanning all the years

The best "live sound" I ever heard was the Grateful Dead, RFK Stadium, June 9 and 10, 1973. I taped both shows. This weekend is famous - Grateful Dead + Allman Bros. The legendary Sunday show w/ Dead was 8 hours long - including 2 breaks, plus the jam w/ Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, and Merl Saunders. This show is loved by countless thousands of music lovers. My AUD recordings epitomize the very best of the Grateful Dead "live sound" for the time. The prototype Wall of Sound is nailed by the sound crew and the Dead for this weekend. Set within an outdoor Stadium, these 2 close-up infield FOBs spatially capture sound from the two Aux PA towers on the infield, behind the taper. The sound delay from the Wall of Sound to the Aux PA towers adds a touch of ear candy as it rolls around the stadium. This was by far the best sound fidelity experience I ever heard come out of a PA System, period. It was a sensational orgy of sound. Here are my amazing-sounding Tapes, professionally transferred by Matt Smith:

Saturday - June 9

Sunday - June 10

nice webpage I made to honor this weekend

Both shows were recently matrixed by Dave Usborne in an acid-mixed boxed set, at my request:

June 9, 1973 matrix - stream this matrix from The Archive
June 9, 1973 matrix - torrent this matrix from etree

June 10, 1973 matrix - stream this matrix from The Archive
June 10, 1973 matrix - torrent this matrix from etree

-- Here's the link to etree's torrent for the April 27-28, 1974 Marin County Bluegrass Festival --

>>> best Tape Recordings I ever made - SBDs and AUDs-fob <<<

Live Music Archive homepage
over 131,000 items - tapes of live music
over 6250 bands
and growing all the time

Live Music Archive
band listing

The fantastic folks at e-tree dot org and archive dot org are uniquely woven together -- serving you live music collections from trade-friendly bands at the Live Music Archive -- blending lossless SBDs together with AUDs from live-music-loving tapers. Grateful Dead SBDs are streaming VBR Mp3s. Please make sure to thank these great people at the dot-orgs.

Tip for you music lovers searching on LMA: USE the advanced search FORM on here. BEST WAY to find everything YOU are LOOKING for!!! Plug in the band name ("collection"). Plug in the exact date if you know the exact date -- fastest, best way to find your show.

Use the "any field" section for venue or city names. Or musician's names. I found Sam Bush, David Grisman, Jerry Douglas, Mark O'Conner, Vassar Clements, Bela Fleck and many others all over the place on LMA, sitting in with my favorite bands. Search for New Years shows, or Telluride shows, etc. The "date range" field works great searching large archives, like Grateful Dead (1000s of tapes), String Cheese Incident (100s of tapes), Leftover Salmon (100s of tapes), Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (100s of tapes), or Yonder Mountain String Band (100s of tapes).

Live Music Archive
Advanced Search Form

example for you to Search:
any field = Telluride
collection = String Cheese Incident

then do "sort by date" on the webpage hit-list.

I'm just dropping by here as a wandering minstrel.
Let me sprinkle some magic here.

happy trails,
Monte B Cowboy

email contact for me is here: 420bikeandhike AT gmail dotcom

Monte is a trail grub

a favorite camp of mine in
Rawah Wilderness Area

Twin Crater Lakes
about an hour's ride from Fort Collins
up Poudre Canyon
by Cameron Pass

Django Reinhardt
for a curtain call

Sweet Georgia Brown and I Got Rhythm
*** with Larry Adler on harmonica ***

The Boys with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli

Arabesque - "a little bit Django, a little bit Dawg"
2 sound boards taped by Monte in 1980 in Estes Park, Colorado
Gaslight Tavern show on 1980-10-25 -- and -- P.S. Flowers show on 1980-07-31

What if Sam, Ebo, Curtis and Courtney named The Newgrass Revival
Progressive Revival?

I don't think so. I rest My Case,
Monte

Progressive Newgrass?
Perhaps.

Listening to: Sugaree