- Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (born January 6, 1924) is a musician noted for creating a banjo style (now called Scruggs style) that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. Scruggs was born in Shelby, North Carolina to Georgia Lula Ruppe and George Elam Scruggs. Scruggs joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in late 1945 and his syncopated, three-finger picking style quickly became a sensation. - Tony Trischka
Tony Trischka (born 1949 in Syracuse, New York) is an American banjoist. He was born in Syracuse, New York and was inspired to play banjo in the 1960s, listening to the Kingston Trio. In the mid-60s he joined the Down City Ramblers, then joined Country Cooking and Country Granola. In 1973 he joined Breakfast Special. Tony was musical leader for the Broadway production of "The Robber Bridegroom". - Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson, born March 3, 1923 in Deep Gap, North Carolina, is a guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. According to Doc on his three CD biographical recording "Legacy", he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname to go by. - Ralph Stanley
Ralph Stanley (born February 25, 1927) is an American bluegrass musician. Stanley was born in Big Spraddle Creek, Virginia, near Stratton, Dickenson County, Virginia, USA. The son of Lucy and Lee Stanley, Ralph Edmond Stanley grew up in rural southwestern Virginia. Stanley learned to play the banjo, claw-hammer, style from his mother. It was her inspiration, coupled with Stanley's natural ability, which led Ralph and his older guitar-playing brother Carter, … - Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck is an American virtuoso banjo player. He is most well known for his work with the band Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, which he has described as "a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz." Many of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones' songs were featured on The Weather Channel's "Local On The 8s" segments. - John Hartford
John Cowan Hartford (December 30 1937- June 4 2001) was an American folk, country and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore. Hartford performed with a variety of ensembles throughout his career, and is perhaps best known for his solo performances where he would interchange the guitar, banjo, and fiddle from song to song. - Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (born May 3, 1919), almost universally known as Pete Seeger, is a folk singer, political activist, and author. As a member of the Weavers, he had a string of hits, including a 1949 recording of Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" that topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. He was formerly a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and a major contributor to folk and pioneer of protest music in the 1950s and the 1960s. - Eugene Chadbourne
Eugene Chadbourne (January 4, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York) is a USA composer, improvisor, guitarist and banjoist. He has also been a reviewer for the All Music Guide (AMG), and a contributor to Maximum RocknRoll. Chadbourne started out playing rock and roll guitar, but quickly grew bored with the form's conventions. He started studying other genres, including blues, country, bluegrass, free jazz, … - Alison Brown
Alison Brown is an American banjo player. Brown learned to play guitar at eight and banjo at ten. When she was twelve, she met fiddler Stuart Duncan. In the summer of 1978, Brown traveled across the country with Duncan and his father, playing festivals and contests. She won first place at the Canadian National Banjo Championship, which helped her land a one-night gig at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1980, Brown went to Harvard, where she studied history and literature. - J. D. Crowe
James Dee Crowe (August 27, 1937 in Lexington, Kentucky) is an American banjo player best known as J.D. Crowe. He plays Bluegrass Music with his band, The New South. They tour the country, primarily in the South, playing Bluegrass festivals and the Grand Ole Opry on occasion. Crowe got his professional start playing with Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys while still in his teens. - Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia (August 1, 1942 - August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist perhaps best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. Garcia was viewed by the media as the leader or "spokesman" of the group. Performing with the Grateful Dead for its entire three decade career (which spanned from 1965 to 1995), Garcia participated in a variety of side projects, … - Bob Carlin
Bob Carlin (b. 1953 in New York City) is an American old-time banjo player and singer. Carlin performs primarily in the clawhammer style of banjo. He has toured the United States, Canada, and Europe performing on various historical banjos (including gourd banjos), and has explored the African roots of the banjo by working with the Malian musician Cheick Hamala Diabate and the elder African American fiddler Joe Thompson. - Uncle Dave Macon
Uncle Dave Macon (October 7 1870 - March 22 1952), also known as "The Dixie Dewdrop", was an American farmer, banjo player, singer, songwriter and comedian. Born David Harrison Macon in Smartt Station, Tennessee, Macon farmed for many years, playing the banjo as a hobby. At age fifty, he joined a vaudeville touring company, putting on a comedy show and playing old-time music accompanying himself on banjo. - Bruce Molsky
Bruce Molsky (b. Manhattan, New York, 1955) is an American fiddler, banjo player, guitarist, and singer. He primarily performs old-time music of the Appalachian region. He was born in 1955 at New York Infirmary in Manhattan, and grew up near St. James Park in The Bronx. His father, Milton, a mechanical engineer, was a first-generation American descendant of Jewish immigrants from Poland. As a young man, Bruce first became interested in blues music, … - Abigail Washburn
Abigail Washburn (born November 10, 1979 in Evanston, Illinois) is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet. Washburn was born in Evanston, Illinois (near Chicago), and spent her elementary and part of her junior high school years in a suburb of Washington, D.C.. She attended high school in Minnesota, then attended Colorado College, … - Charlie Poole
Charlie Poole (March 22, 1892 - May 21, 1931) was an American banjo player. Poole was born in Spray (now part of Eden), Rockingham County, in the northern part of North Carolina, near the Virginia border. He spent much of his adult life working in textile mills. He learned banjo as a youth and also played baseball. His three-fingered playing technique was the result of a baseball accident. - Dock Boggs
Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs (February 7,1898-February 7, 1971) was an influential old-time singer, songwriter and banjo player. His style of play, as well as his singing, is considered a unique combination of old-time Appalachian mountain music and the blues. Boggs is deemed by contemporary old-time musicians and performers as a seminal figure in old-time music, at least in part because of the appearance of two of his recordings from the 1920s, "Sugar Baby" and "Country Blues", … - Tommy Jarrell
Tommy Jarrell (born Thomas Jefferson Jarrell, Surry County, North Carolina, March 1, 1901, United States; d. January 28, 1985, United States) was an American fiddler, banjo player, and singer from the Mount Airy region of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains. Although he made his living from road construction (operating a motor grader for the North Carolina Highway Department until his retirement in 1966), Jarrell was an influential musician, … - Pete Wernick
Peter Wernick, also known by many as “Dr. Banjo”, has been involved in the bluegrass music scene for over three decades. He has played with Country Cooking, Hot Rize (with Tim O'Brien, Charles Sawtelle, and Nick Forster) and is currently performing with the bluegrass/jazz combo FLEXIGRASS. He also tours with his wife Joan (Dr. and Nurse Banjo) and with Hot Rize for an occasional reunion. - Harry Reser
Harry F. Reser was an American banjo player and bandleader. Born in Piqua, Ohio, Reser was best known as the leader of The Clicquot Club Eskimos. Reser was regarded by some as the best banjoist of the 1920s. He played with midwestern dance bands, relocating to Buffalo, New York in 1920. Arriving in Manhattan the following year, he became an in-demand session musician during the early 1920s. In 1925, he found fame as the director for NBC's Clicquot Club Eskimo Orchestra, … - Taj Mahal
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, better known by the stage name Taj Mahal (born May 17, 1942), is an American blues musician. - Cynthia Sayer
Cynthia Nan Sayer is a jazz banjoist and vocalist. Sayer was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, but grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. She took up the banjo when she was thirteen years old. She attended Ithica College in New York and was graduated magna cum laude with a bachelors degree in English. In 1982 she recorded with Marvin Hamlisch for the soundtrack for "Sophie's Choice". - Danny Barker
Danny Barker, born Daniel Moses Barker, was a jazz banjoist, singer, guitarist, songwriter, ukelele player and author from New Orleans, founder of the locally famous Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band. He was a rhythm guitarist for some of the best bands of the day, including Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter throughout the 1930s. - Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, musician and composer. - Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan MBE (29 April 1931 - 3 November 2002) was a skiffle musician, possibly the most famous of them all, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is sometimes called the King of Skiffle and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s. - Danny Barnes
Danny Barnes (born 1961) is a banjo and guitar player whose music is influenced by country, jazz and punk. Born in Temple, Texas and raised in Belton, Barnes was exposed to music at a young age: he recalls picking up a love of country and bluegrass from his father and grandmother, Delta blues from one brother and punk from another. He attended the University of Texas and graduated with a degree in audio production in 1985. - Johnny St. Cyr
Johnny St. Cyr (b. April 17, 1890 in New Orleans, Louisiana, d. June 17, 1966 in Los Angeles, California) was an American jazz banjoist and guitarist. His most notable work was as a member of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven bands. From 1961 until his death in 1966, St. Cyr was the bandleader of the Young Men From New Orleans, who performed at Disneyland. - Grandpa Jones
Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones (born October 20, 1913 in Niagara, Kentucky - February 19, 1998) was an American banjo player and "old time" country and gospel music singer. - Sonny Osborne
Sonny Osborne (born 1937 in Hyden, Kentucky) is a bluegrass singer and banjo player. He is best known for his collaboration with his brother Bobby Osborne as the Osborne Brothers, and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1994. - Eddie Peabody
Edwin Ellsworth Peabody (February 19 1902 - November 7 1970) was an American musician most notable for his accomplished playing of the plectrum banjo. He was also known professionally as "Eddie," "Little Eddie," "King of the Banjo," and "Happiness Boy". - Clarence Ashley
Clarence "Tom" Ashley (September 29 1895 (or 1885?) - June 2 1967) was a 20th-century American clawhammer banjo player and singer. Born in Bristol, Tennessee and nicknamed "Tommy Tiddy Waddy" by his grandfather, Ashley became best known to friends and acquaintances as 'Tom'. He began to play banjo and guitar at a young age, and at 16 joined a traveling medicine show as a banjo-picker and singer. Ashley made his first recordings with Garley Foster and Doc Walsh in 1928. - Bucky Pizzarelli
John Paul 'Bucky' Pizzarelli (born) is an American classical jazz guitarist and banjoist, perhaps most notable for his work with jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli, his son. John has also worked for NBC as a staffman for Dick Cavett (1951) and also ABC with Bobby Rosengarden in (1952). The list of musicians Bucky has collaborated with over his career is considerable, including Les Paul, Stephane Grappelli, and Benny Goodman. - Lonnie Johnson
Alfonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was a pioneering American blues and jazz singer/guitarist. There is some dispute over the year of his birth, but 1894 is what appears on his passport. He was a pioneer of jazz guitar as the first to play single-string guitar solos. - Brad Leftwich
Brad Leftwich is a prominent American old-time fiddle and banjo player and teacher. He is originally from Oklahoma. Leftwich was a founding member of the Plank Road String Band in the mid-1970s. He has recorded for the Rounder, County, Copper Creek, and Marimac labels. He has written a book on the Round Peak clawhammer banjo style that is published by Mel Bay, and has released two old-time fiddle instructional videos. - Roscoe Holcomb
Roscoe Holcomb (1911-1981) was an American singer, banjo player, and guitarist from Daisy, Kentucky. A prominent figure in Appalachian folk music, Holcomb was the inspiration for the term "high, lonesome sound," coined by folklorist and friend John Cohen. The term is now used to describe bluegrass singing, although Holcomb was not, strictly speaking, a bluegrass performer. Holcomb's repertoire included old-time music, hymns, and blues ballads. - Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens (born July 1, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Petoskey, Michigan. He is known for his lyrically focused and instrumentally rich songs that often relate to faith and family. Stevens has enjoyed wide critical success in the United States. He is considered part of the folk revival in indie pop, but his influences are very broad. His music has been likened to electronica and the minimalism of Steve Reich. - Future Man
Royel (Roy) Wilfred Wooten (stage name Futureman, known as Futch to his fans, born October 13, 1957 in Hampton, Virginia) is an inventor, musician and composer. He is a percussionist and member of the jazz quartet Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. The other members are banjoist Béla Fleck, saxophonist Jeff Coffin, and bass guitar virtuoso Victor Wooten (Royel Wooten's brother). - Vess Ossman
Vess Ossman (1868 - 1923) was a leading 5-string banjoist and popular recording artist. Sylvester Louis Ossman was born August 21, 1868 in Hudson, New York, USA. He made his first recordings in 1893. He became one of the most recorded musicians of his day, recording marches, cakewalks, rags, and other instrumentals. He also accompanied popular singers including Arthur Collins and Len Spencer. He performed in the USA and England. - Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg (born 18 August 1939) is an American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie "Deliverance". - Gus Cannon
Gus Cannon (b. Red Banks, Mississippi, September 12, 1883 - d. Memphis, October 15, 1979) was an African American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. Born on a plantation, Cannon moved to Clarksdale, then the home of W.C. Handy, at the age of 12.
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