September 10-12, 2004
Staff Biographies

Danny Barnes was a founding member of the Bad Livers -- an Austin, Texas-based trio who combined elements of bluegrass, hard country and old time music with the energy of punk. During the 90s, the Bad Livers recorded six critically acclaimed albums of predominately original music, most of which was composed by Barnes, and performed over 1,000 shows worldwide. Barnes left his native Texas for the Seattle area in 1997, and has since teamed up with a variety of stellar musicians to record a number of innovative CDs, including Things I Done Wrong, The Willies, and Dirt on the Angel.

Mac Benford has been playing the 5-string banjo for 40 years. He was fortunate enough in his formative years to have direct contact with great players like Wade Ward, Kyle Creed, Tom Ashley, and Roscoe Holcomb, all of whom strongly influenced his playing. He came to prominence during the 70s as a member of the legendary Highwoods String Band. Later on, while performing and recording with the Backwoods Band and the Woodshed Allstars, Mac expanded on the traditional role of the clawhammer banjo as a lead and backup instrument. His recently released Kentucky Favorites showcases his ability to capture the melodic subtlety of complex fiddle tunes without sacrificing the ring and drive of the best traditional playing.

Laura Boosinger is an award-winning performer and recording artist whose primary focus is the interpretation of traditional music from the Southern Appalachian region. Through an introduction to several traditional instruments and vocal styles found throughout the region, from ballads to play-parties, old-time banjo to finger-style autoharp, Laura invites audiences to participate in the richness of the region's musical heritage. Her teaching of old-time banjo has been featured at many traditional music camps including The Swannanoa Gathering, Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week and the Augsta Heritage Workshops. Laura's work was also featured in Mel Bay's Banjo 2000.

David Cahn has played banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass, and accordion in numerous bands over the past twenty years. He's toured with Rodney Miller and appears on two of his CDs which include several of David's original tunes. He's also recorded with Clyde Moody, Charlie Moore, Wade Mainer, Helen Carter, and Mark Simos, and is featured on the Rounder recording "Young Fogies II" with his old-time band, "The Queen City Bulldogs" (1st place, Clifftop, 1994). He's performed at Wintergrass for the past four years with Greg and Jere Canote, and taught at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, The Festival of American Fiddletunes (where for 15 years he's led the beginners band lab), Pinewoods, Augusta, and many other camps and festivals around the country and abroad.

Greg Canote and Jere Canote (accompanists). The Canote Brothers from Seattle, WA, are as renowned for their affable attitudes and humor as they are for their music. Greg on fiddle, and Jere on guitar, and both on banjo ukes, perform zany concerts, play for dances, lead songs, and promote a good time! The twin brothers started singing soon after they were born and haven't closed their mouths since. They spent their early years in California's Sacramento Valley, inventing songs with their father at the piano and tagging along with their parents' folk and square dance group. They honed their skills performing in many bands and discovered old-time music in the mid 1970s. In 1978 they attended the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, WA, and eventually became frequent teachers there. After touring the country with dance caller and singer Sandy Bradley for four years, they returned to the Northwest for a thirteen year stint on Seattle's National Public Radio show, "Sandy Bradley's Potluck," as Sandy's affable side-kicks. The rigors of finding new material for a weekly radio show kept the twins on their toes, mining and performing gems of American music of the past as well as writing new songs in those styles.

Janet Davis was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Music was always an integral part of her family life. Although Janet's formal musical training was primarily in the classical field, she showed a keen, early interest in stringed instruments, particularly those involved in folk and bluegrass music. In college, she played the guitar and sang as a folk and blues musician in many of the Austin, Texas clubs, learning from such greats as Lightnin' Hopkins, Janis Joplin and others who played the same venues. Janet is equally adept on both Dobro® and 5-string banjo. Her books are popular worldwide. She has written numerous best selling books for the 5-string banjo as well as dobro. Mel Bay has several of her books listed as "Best Sellers." Janet also teaches and plays ALL bluegrass instruments and several others. She has been a columnist with Banjo Newsletter for 27 years. Janet Davis Music Company is celebrating its 28th Anniversary this year.

Bill Evans is well-known within the bluegrass banjo world as a player and teacher. A former member of Dry Branch Fire Squad, Bill currently tours nationally with Peter Rowan, John Reischman, Tony Trischka, and with his solo historical concert The Banjo in America. In addition, he writes a monthly instructional column for Banjo Newsletter and has produced instructional books and videos with Sonny Osborne and J.D. Crowe for AcuTab Publications and Homespun Tapes. He has taught at the Augusta Heritage Center, Camp Bluegrass, and Nashcamp bluegrass instructional camps.

Bill Keith: A renowned explorer of the frontiers of banjo picking and of the instrument's harmonic potentialities, Bill Keith largely invented the three-finger picking style known as "melodic" banjo. He first came to international attention in the early 60s when he played and recorded with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. He co-authored the original Earl Scruggs banjo instruction book and record, and has also written several other banjo instruction books, including the first ones ever published in French and Italian. He has recorded several albums for Rounder, Green Linnet, and Hexagon, and has toured widely throughout North America, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia. He devised and, through the Beacon Banjo Company, still markets the famous tuning pegs that bear his name.

Peter Langston (accompanist) Peter seems to play anything with strings on it (even the banjo!), and is equally adept at backup and hot improvisation. He has played in bands on both the East Coast (Metropolitan Opry, Wretched Refuse) and the West Coast (Puddle City, Entropy Service, Portland Zoo), and has performed with such notables as Doc Watson, Reverend Gary Davis, Tony Trischka, Peter Rowan, Alison Brown, and Mike Seeger. Peter has led a double life as a musician and a computer whiz and has taught both audio recording and computer science at the college level. Peter has been a frequent member of the staff of various music and dance camps, including the California Coast Music Camp, Sierra Swing, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Alta Sierra, and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, which he helps run.

Rick Lee (accompanist) is a Massachusetts-based old-time banjo and piano player, singer, and songwriter with family roots deep in Appalachia (his Tennessee-born grandfather was a singer with repertoire from the mountains of East Tennessee). A much sought-after piano-accompanist in his own right, Rick designs and teaches workshops for musicians who want to develop their own accompaniment skills, with a focus on jamming situations where players have to adapt on the fly to unfamiliar material. He has solo CDs on Waterbug and Swift River, and a trio CD with Scuttlebutt on Soundside.

Brad Leftwich is the author of the Mel Bay book Round Peak Style Clawhammer Banjo. Best known as a fiddler, Brad has in fact been playing banjo longer. He first took it up more than thirty years ago, inspired by his grandfather, a banjo picker from Carroll County, Va., and by his father, a singer and guitar player in the old-time style. Brad has learned much of his music from traditional musicians in the region formed by Surry County, N.C., and Grayson and Carroll Counties, Va., and in particular from Tommy Jarrell and other banjo players from the Round Peak community of Surry County. He was a member of the Plank Road String Band in the mid-seventies, toured with Leftwich & Higginbotham throughout the eighties and nineties, and now performs with Tom Sauber and Alice Gerrard as Tom, Brad, & Alice.

Ken Perlman: Perhaps the best-known exponent of the "melodic" clawhammer style, Ken is known where-ever banjos are played as a master of clawhammer technique and an expert teacher of clawhammer mechanics. He has been a Banjo Newsletter columnist for 20 years; he has written several books on clawhammer instruction including the well known works Melodic Clawhammer Banjo and Clawhammer Style Banjo, he has recorded several series of audio and video banjo instruction, and he has taught at well over a dozen music camps including the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp, Common Ground on the Hill, and the Tennessee Banjo Institute.

Mike Seeger: As a full-time musician and collector since 1960, Mike Seeger has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan either solo, with the New Lost City Ramblers, with traditional artists such as Tommy Jarrell and Roscoe Holcomb, or as director of traditional music festivals. He sings a wide variety of traditional rural songs and plays a number of styles on banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, autoharp, lap dulcimer, trump (jew's harp), harmonica, and quills (pan pipes). Mike has received five Grammy nominations: two with the New Lost City Ramblers and three on his own and he has won a couple of banjo contests: Galax, Virginia (1958) and Athens, Alabama (1974).

Laura Smith was born and raised in Hawaii, surrounded by the music of the islands, her Dad's piano and tenor banjo playing, and the rich harmonies of the church choir. She started playing old time banjo in 1973 when she attended the Sweet's Mill Music Camp in California and was introduced to a wide range of live traditional music. She has been playing and singing ever since. Laura sang with Larry Hanks for many years, and together they toured Great Britain. She has taught classes at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop for 18 summers. Classes have included banjo, guitar, song repertoire, and hula. She has also taught at the Georgia Strait Guitar Workshop. Laura has been a public school teacher for the last 17 years and uses music daily in her classroom.

Mike Stahlman: is a Portland, Ore. banjo player whose playing style was heavily influenced by Earl Scruggs and Alan Munde. Mike has taught bluegrass banjo at Portland Community College in Portland since 1997, and currently plays banjo and tours with the Oregon based Sawtooth Mountain Boys. He has recorded two banjo instrumental CD's -- "Bluebonnet," and the recently released "First Dance."

Vivian Williams (accompanist) is well known in the U.S. and Canada for her fiddling ability. She performs regularly for old time dancing and is one of the leading old time and bluegrass fiddlers on the West Coast. She has won many fiddle contests in the U.S. and Canada, including: 1999 National Senior Champion (Weiser) and Washington State Senior Champion, three times Washington State fiddle champion, three times National Ladies Champion, four times winner of the West Coast International in Canada, and the Smithsonian Fiddle Contest in Washington, DC. Vivian plays primarily in the old time fiddle styles found among fiddlers in the Pacific Northwest, with a heavy influence of bluegrass. She is a noted composer of fiddle tunes, and her tunes have been recorded by many prominent folk and bluegrass musicians.