September 6-9, 2012
Staff Biographies

Paul Brown spent years learning music directly from some of the last fiddle, banjo, and guitar players to emerge before the age of radio and recordings, including banjoist and fiddler Tommy Jarrell, banjoist Gilmer Woodruff, guitarists and singers Paul Sutphin and Fields Ward, fiddlers Robert Sykes and Luther Davis, and mandolinist Verlen Clifton. He has played since 1978 with fiddler Benton Flippen, and he has been a member of numerous ensembles, including the Bent Mountain Band with Andy Cahan and Mike Seeger, Benton Flippen & the Smokey Valley Boys, Robert Sykes & the Surry County Boys, and the Toast String Stretchers. Paul has been on the staff at music camps across the country since the early 1970s - from the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Washington, to Pinewoods in Massachusetts. His most recent appearances on CD are "Way Down In North Carolina" with Mike Seeger, "Benton Flippen: Old Time, New Times," and "Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday: The Breaking Up Christmas Story." Paul has a website at http://www.brownpaul.net/.

Greg Canote and Jere Canote 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 29 years. Janet Davis Music Company is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year.
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Paul Elliott Paul Elliott has been playing fiddle professionally for over 25 years and is at home in a range of styles from old timey to be-bop. Paul has toured and performed with a variety of artists including Michelle Shocked, Buell Neidlinger, The Good Old Persons, and John Reischman. He has recorded extensively for radio, television, and film as well as an impressive list of CDs that includes Scott Nygard's "No Hurry" on the Rounder label.

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.

Deemed a "banjo virtuoso" by the Washington Post, Adam Hurt draws on diverse musical influences from the North Carolina piedmont, the mountains of central West Virginia, the Ohio River Valley, and beyond to create his own elegantly innovative clawhammer banjo playing. At age 24, Adam has already placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions including Clifftop, Mount Airy, and Galax, and won the state banjo championships of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio, as well as the state fiddle championships of Virginia and Maryland. A gifted and respected teacher, Adam has conducted banjo workshops at the Swannanoa Gathering, the Augusta Heritage Center, and Appalshop, among other venues around the country.

David Keenan is no stranger to music. Performing since the age of 12 and teaching since he was 17, David has turned a love of music into a full-time career that has seen him share the stage with the likes of Bill Monroe, Bela Fleck, and even Garrison Keilor. David's proficiency on several instruments; banjo, guitar, and mandolin, landed him a job with Sugar Hill recording artists Ranch Romance with whom he recorded 3 albums and toured for 5 years playing over 100 shows a year throughout the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. David is currently a member of several bands in his native city of Seattle and plays and tours regularly. David is a fine composer, having licensed many songs to background music giant Muzak; as well as being a record producer and session player. He is also a gifted teacher, and has taught at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and The British Columbia Bluegrass Workshop in Sorrento, BC since 2001.

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, a strong and imaginative player, plays 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, Johnny Gimble, and Mike Seeger. Peter has led a double life as a musician and a computer whiz and has taught audio recording, computer science, and songwriting at the college level. He is a frequent staff member at music and dance camps such as California Coast Music Camp, Sierra Swing, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, the Northeast Heritage Music Camp, Camp Bluegrass, Alta Sierra, and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.

Alan Munde needs no introduction to long-time Bluegrass fans. From his early creative work with Sam Bush in Poor Richard's Almanac to his traditional bluegrass apprenticeship with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys to his 21-year stint anchoring the landmark Country Gazette, Alan has blazed a trail as one of the most innovative and influential banjo players of all time. Along the way, Alan also recorded and contributed to numerous instrumental recordings, including the 2001 IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year -- "Knee Deep in Bluegrass." Alan has supplemented his recorded work with several instructional publications for the banjo; from 1986-2006 he taught Bluegrass and Country Music at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas.

Alan O'Bryant is best known as a singer, songwriter and banjo player with The Nashville Bluegrass Band. Originally from Reidsville, NC his career in Nashville spans some thirty plus years of recording, producing, publishing and performing worldwide. His appearances have included workshop classes on banjo technique and instrument set-up, vocal and band performance dynamics and more at venues including; Augusta Heritage Center,in Elkins WV, Wintergrass Academy in Tacoma WA, Vancouver Folk Festival, Rocky Grass Academy in Lyons, CO, Disney Institute in Orlando, FL, and Nashcamp in Cumberland Furnace, TN. Along with NBB and his home project studio Alan currently enjoys picking with his two sons Calan and Ian, learning old time tunes on the mandolin and five string banjo and he gives private lessons at the Fiddle & Pick near his home in Pegram, TN.

Cathy Barton Para has been playing banjo for more than thirty-five years in both the clawhammer and two-finger picking styles. She worked with Grandpa and Ramona Jones in their crafts shop and dinner theater in Mountain View, AR in the 1970s and 1980s, and she toured with Ramona Jones for several years. Her banjo repertoire is influenced by Grandpa and Ramona, and by Missouri fiddlers such as the late Taylor McBaine and Pete McMahan. Her musical interests also include early country music, and music from the Civil War and Lewis-and-Clark eras. She and her husband Dave Para tour the United States, Europe and Canada and are best known for performing songs and tunes collected from traditional singers and fiddlers in their home state of Missouri and the Ozarks region. Cathy won the Tennessee State Banjo Championship two times, she appeared on the "Grand Old Opry," and on the television shows "Hee Haw" and "Nashville Now." She and Dave have made ten duet recordings.

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.

Tom Sauber is an old time musician equally at home playing banjo, fiddle, or guitar. Growing up near Los Angeles, as a teenager he attended a Pete Seeger concert and was inspired to learn the 5-string banjo but he soon became devoted to learning the old-time styles played by Mike Seeger and the New Lost City Ramblers. Following the Ramblers' lead he began learning from older generation musicians, while still a teenager making pilgrimages to visit Sam and Kirk McGee, Dock Boggs, Clint Howard, and Doc Watson. At the same time he began playing with the older musicians such as Earl Collins, Ed Lowe, Bob Rogers, Mel Durham, and others who had emigrated to Southern California from their home states.
Over 25 years playing with Ed Lowe, the nephew of Round Peak legend Charlie Lowe, Tom has absorbed both the essence and the subtle techniques of the Round Peak style of clawammer banjo as it is played on both fretted and fretless banjos. He is also a master of finger-style banjo, equally at home playing thumb or index lead 2-finger or old-time 3-finger style.

Laura Smith was born and raised in Hawai'i, surrounded by the music of the islands, her Dad's piano and tenor banjo music, 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 has been playing and singing ever since. She sang with Larry Hanks for years and more recently has been in a duo with Steve Palazzo. She taught in the public schools for 23 years and has taught at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, the American Banjo Camp, the Georgia Strait Workshop, and the California Coast Music Camp. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.

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 Lee Highway. He also plays with The Loafers. Mike has recorded two banjo instrumental CD's -- "Bluebonnet," and "First Dance."