Deering Live

This week we're featuring Tony Furtado on Deering Live. Tony has been away from the banjo scene for a while but in 2021 he came storming back with his banjo-focused release Decembering. Tony is a monster 3-finger style banjo player and has recorded with Alison Kraus and many others.

Victor Furtado is a monster of a clawhammer banjo player who while deeply understanding and respecting the old-time tradition, has developed new techniques to bring this style into the modern acoustic music space. Victor has won numerous awards including the 2019 Steve Martin Prize For Banjo. We are excited to feature this young banjo wiz on Deering Live!

5-string banjo master Ryan Cavanaugh returns to Deering Live this week! In this episode, we will explore how to comp chords for 20th-century American music styles other than bluegrass.

Ryan will show you examples of how to voice chords on the 5-string banjo for styles such as traditional New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, modal jazz, funk, and rock & roll.

Ken Perlman is a pioneer of the 5-string banjo style known as melodic clawhammer; he is considered one of today’s top clawhammer players, known in particular for his skillful adaptations of Celtic, Appalachian, & Canadian fiddle tunes to the style.

As well as touring throughout most of the English-speaking world, Ken is a recording artist, a banjo camp director, and author of multiple widely used banjo instructional books.

His latest recording is called Frails & Frolics, while his latest instruction book is named Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo (Mel Bay Publications)

Ben Wright is a founding member of the Henhouse Prowlers, taking the band on the road for more than 15 years and proudly leading Chicago’s robust bluegrass scene.

The Prowlers have recorded 8 albums and tour relentlessly, having garnered a large following across the planet. The band blends their own original material with songs written in multiple languages, learned from their extensive travels.

In 2013, the Henhouse Prowlers began working with the US State Department as musical diplomats, to date they have traveled to more than 25 countries. During these tours, Ben started to see the opportunities for education and diplomacy at home were just as valuable as the international exchanges, inspiring him (and his business partner Jon Goldfine) to start the 501(c)3 non-profit Bluegrass Ambassadors.

The band now works through this entity to bring cross-cultural music education to children in low-income schools, college students in universities, and festival attendees; striving to remind people that diplomacy isn’t just for diplomats; blending global folk music traditions with cultural awareness and understanding.

Since Covid, Ben was hired by American Voices, the implementing partner for the State Department cultural programs, to help transition musical diplomacy work into the virtual setting.

This week on Deerling Live, we are joined by Bob Taylor, co-founder of Taylor Guitars. Greg Deering and Bob Taylor have known each other since the late 1960's when they were both key members of the American Dream cooperative - a collection of musical instruments repair specialists and builders here in San Diego.

In this episode, we sit down with Bob Taylor, Greg Deering, and Janet Deering to learn about the remarkable story of two of the worlds most respected names in stringed musical instruments today.

This week on Deering Live we are happy to have classical banjoist, John Bullard. John is a classically trained musician and has published several books including Bach For Banjo.

Come listen to him play and share in a transformative revelation: to experience the artistic marriage of banjo and classical music.

We are excited to feature bluegrass banjoist Mike Munford on Deering Live this week. Mike is a past IBMA Banjo Player of the Year winner and currently plays with the Grammy Nominated band Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen. Besides being one of the top banjoists on the scene today, Mike is also a very highly regarded banjo setup technician. Get some of your banjo setup questions answered here!

This week on Deering Live, we are giving you the chance to ask questions to our panel of guests from Deering. Ask anything to CEO Jamie Deering, COO Jamie Latty, and Master Builder Chad Kopotic.

They are ready (and slightly nervous) for your questions! Anything about the company, the banjos, maintenance, and them as people.  Favorite foods, musical tastes, hobbies, sports teams...almost anything goes.

We are excited to feature progressive banjoist Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon to Deering Live this week. Andy is a killer player who continues to push the banjo envelope. Hailing from North Carolina, Andy honed his skills in scene that included players such as Ryan Cavanaugh and Rex McGee. In time, Andy moved out to Colorado and waded deep into the Colorado jamgrass scene, eventually landing the banjo chair in Leftover Salmon which he has held for over a decade. This is sure to be a fun and inspiring show.