On Saturday, April 20th The Mainstay is proud to present nationally acclaimed bluegrass banjo player Tony Trischka. He and his group will perform a program they have titled “EarlJam”, a tribute to one of the heroes of bluegrass, Earl Scruggs whose “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” brought bluegrass to popular attention in 1949. Trischka credits Scruggs with moving him to “put the guitar aside and take up the banjo” at age 13.
The New York Times has hailed Tony Trischka as “the father of modern bluegrass”.
Tony was born in Syracuse, N.Y. As a young boy he was influenced by the folk music his father held dear, including the work of Woody Guthrie, the Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly. He positioned himself in the New York City-centered folk revival in the early ’70s and settled in among a peer group of extraordinary musicians who saw American roots music as a thriving, living language. The experience offered him the opportunity to broaden his style and acknowledge the influences of different musical genres. His numerous albums that followed found him refining his eclectic bluegrass style and featured such newgrass royalty as violinist Darol Anger, guitarist Tony Rice and mandolinist David Grisman. Béla Fleck began studying with Trischka as a teenage bluegrass wunderkind. Trischka was also a mentor of Steve Martin.
Earl Scruggs actually recorded with Trischka on his Grammy-nominated album “Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular.” The EarlJams program includes Trischka’s note-for-note transcriptions of jam sessions Scruggs played with John Hartford and others.
Trischka will be joined on stage by guitarist/ bluegrass vocalist Michael Daves, fiddler Nate Lee and bassist Jared Engel.
Showtime for the Mainstay concert event is 8 pm. Tickets are $20 in advance of the show and can be purchased online at mainstayrockhall.org. Phone reservations are accepted by calling (410) 639-9133 (tickets reserved by phone are $25 when paid at the door). The Mainstay is located at 5753 N Main Street in Rock Hall, Maryland. Its regular calendar of local, regional, and nationally touring artists features a live performance every week of the year (February through December) in a variety of music genres.
The programs of the Mainstay are supported with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Kent Cultural Alliance.
For more about The Mainstay, go here.
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