Bob Yellin

Last updated

Bob Yellin
Born(1936-06-10)June 10, 1936
New York City, United States
Genres Bluegrass
Occupation(s) Bluegrass musician
Instruments Banjo
Years active1958–present
Labels Vanguard, Elektra, Smithsonian Folkways
Associated acts The Greenbriar Boys

Anton Robert "Bob" Yellin (born June 10, 1936) is an American banjo player and founding member of The Greenbriar Boys bluegrass music group. [1]

Contents

Biography

Yellin was born and raised in New York City. His father was an NBC studio pianist, his mother was a concert pianist, and his brother Pete Yellin was a jazz saxophonist. [2] After studying violin, voice, and piano as a child, Bob entered the High School of Music and Art in New York, majoring in trumpet. Following high school, he attended the City College of New York, where he majored in physics. [3] Yellin's interest in bluegrass music in general and the banjo in particular was sparked in 1954 when he heard a recording by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. After receiving an inexpensive banjo from a girlfriend, Yellin learned the basics of Scruggs style picking from Pete Seeger's book How to Play the Five-String Banjo. This was supplemented by his exposure, in the weekly folk music gatherings in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park, to the playing of other young banjoists such as Eric Weissberg and Roger Sprung.

It was also in Washington Square that Yellin met guitarist/vocalist John Herald, and in 1958 Yellin, Herald, and Weissberg formed The Greenbriar Boys. From their inception, Yellin and Herald were joined on mandolin by baritone Ralph Rinzler, until Rinzler was replaced by Frank Wakefield on their final album, “Better Late than Never.” Yellin remained with the group through the mid-1960s. [4] In 1969 Yellin moved with his family to Israel to live on kibbutz Ein Dor. Informed that he would have to change his given name, since there was no "Robert" in the Old Testament, he went by the name David during his 13-year residence in Israel. While in that country he performed with the bluegrass group Galilee Grass. [5] As a member of that group, Yellin began to depart from traditional bluegrass repertoire in the direction of folk-rock artists such as The Eagles and Loggins and Messina. [4] In 1982 Yellin returned to the United States, settling in Vermont. With fellow musician Mark Greenberg, he formed the group Bob Yellin & the Joint Chiefs of Bluegrass, which remained active into the 1990s. [6]

Recording and performance history

In 1958 Yellin and Mike Seeger performed at the Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention in Galax, Virginia, where the two shared second prize for their double-banjo rendition of "Old Joe Clark". That same year, Yellin provided what one critic termed a "deft, innovative banjo accompaniment" for Paul Clayton's Elektra album Unholy Matrimony, [7] and in 1959 he collaborated with Mike Seeger on two tracks of the Folkways LP Mountain Music Bluegrass Style. [8] In both 1960 and 1961, Yellin took the first place prize for banjo at the North Carolina Fiddler's Convention in Union Grove. [9] Yellin performed as a member of the Greenbriar Boys on two tracks of the Joan Baez album Joan Baez, Vol. 2 (1961, Vanguard) and on each of the group's own albums:

Yellin’s instrument, used throughout his career, is a Gibson RB-4 flat-head banjo purchased, on the advice of Roger Sprung, at a New York music store in 1958 for $125. [4]

Related Research Articles

Bill Monroe American bluegrass musician, songwriter

William Smith Monroe was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the "Father of Bluegrass".

Earl Scruggs American musician

Earl Eugene Scruggs was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was radically different from the traditional way the five-string banjo had previously been played. This new style of playing became popular and elevated the banjo from its previous role as a background rhythm instrument to featured solo status. He popularized the instrument across several genres of music.

Mike Seeger American folk musician and folklorist

Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.

<i>Joan Baez, Vol. 2</i> 1961 studio album by Joan Baez

Joan Baez, Vol. 2 was Baez's second album. Released in 1961, the album, like her self-titled 1960 debut album, featured mostly traditional songs. The bluegrass band The Greenbriar Boys provided backup on two songs. Joan Baez, Vol. 2 peaked at #13 on the Billboard album chart and was nominated for a Grammy for "Best Contemporary Folk Performance".

John Herald was an American folk and bluegrass songwriter, solo and studio musician and one-time member of The Greenbriar Boys trio.

The Greenbriar Boys were a northern bluegrass music group who first got together in jam sessions in New York's Washington Square Park.

Appalachian music

Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. It is derived from various European and African influences, including English ballads, Irish and Scottish traditional music, hymns, and African-American blues. First recorded in the 1920s, Appalachian musicians were a key influence on the early development of Old-time music, country music, and bluegrass, and were an important part of the American folk music revival of the 1960s. Instruments typically used to perform Appalachian music include the banjo, American fiddle, fretted dulcimer, and guitar.

Eric Weissberg was an American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist, whose most commercially successful recording was his banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos," featured as the theme of the film Deliverance (1972) and released as a single that reached number 2 in the United States and Canada in 1973.

Allan Thomas Paley was an American guitarist, banjo and fiddle player. He was best known for his work with the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ralph Rinzler was a mandolin player, folksinger, and the co-founder of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian. This festival was from the beginning and continues to be a major event for musicians, artistans, and craftsman from a broad variety of American culture, including African American, Native American, Appalachian, Southern, Western and other groups in the United States.

Kenny Baker (fiddler) American fiddle player

Kenneth Clayton Baker was an American fiddle player best known for his 25-year tenure with Bill Monroe and his group The Blue Grass Boys.

American folk music revival 20th-century American musical movement

The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Billie Holiday, Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob Niles, Susan Reed, Paul Robeson, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Cisco Houston had enjoyed a limited general popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. The revival brought forward styles of American folk music that had in earlier times contributed to the development of country and western, blues, jazz, and rock and roll music.

Bill Keith (musician)

William Bradford "Bill" Keith was a five-string banjoist who made a significant contribution to the stylistic development of the instrument. In the 1960s he introduced a variation on the popular "Scruggs style" of banjo playing which would soon become known as melodic style, or "Keith style".

<i>The Watson Family</i> 1963 live album by Doc Watson

The Watson Family is the title of a recording by American folk music artist Doc Watson and The Watson Family, originally released in 1963.

"Cumberland Gap" is an Appalachian folk song that likely dates to the latter half of the 19th century and was first recorded in 1924. The song is typically played on banjo or fiddle, and well-known versions of the song include instrumental versions as well as versions with lyrics. A version of the song appeared in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by folk song collector John Lomax. Woody Guthrie recorded a version of the song at his Folkways sessions in the mid-1940s, and the song saw a resurgence in popularity with the rise of bluegrass and the American folk music revival in the 1950s. In 1957, the British musician Lonnie Donegan had a No. 1 UK hit with a skiffle version of "Cumberland Gap".

Roger Sprung is an American banjo player and teacher best known for introducing authentic bluegrass banjo picking styles to the folk music community in the north and for the eclectic manner in which he has adapted bluegrass banjo techniques to music of other genres. His 1963 album Progressive Bluegrass may have been the first use of that title, later applied to a subgenre of bluegrass music by him and others.

James Dickson was born in Los Angeles, California, son of a diesel engineer in the United States Navy. He was an avid sailor as a teenager, and enlisted in the United States Army in 1946 before he embarked on a career in the recording industry as a self-taught record producer and band manager. Before producing the first Elektra Records Bluegrass records he produced his first record, an LP on his own label, Vaya. He eventually sold the rights of Lord Buckley's 1955 album Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes to Elektra and it was in print for another 25 years. Jim Dickson was the lone individual behind Elektra Records Los Angeles Bluegrass albums. In 1962 he produced his first bluegrass record for Elektra called Dian and the Greenbriar Boys by the Greenbriar Boys and a Hollywood country singer, Dian James. While working on the collaboration between Greenbriar Boys and Dian James, Dickson discovered the Dillards and with the help of Ralph Rinzler convinced Elektra Records that they were a good Bluegrass group. He went on to produce three of their records, 1963's Back Porch Bluegrass, 1964's Live!!!! Almost!!! and 1965's Pickin' and Fiddlin' which featured fiddler, Byron Berline. Rosenberg notes that Pickin' and Fiddlin' "was unlike any previous bluegrass album; it was an LP of old-time fiddle music played to bluegrass backing." Dickson was behind was the first ever recording of a Bob Dylan song by a bluegrass band, The Dillards recording of Bob Dylan's "Walkin' Down the Line" on their 1964 album Live!!!! Almost!!!

Cynthia May Carver, known professionally as Cousin Emmy, was a banjo player, fiddler and country singer who was one of the pioneering solo female stars in the country music industry. Although hit records eluded her, she proved to be a major name in personal appearances and on radio in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s she gained a new audience on the folk music circuit. Her song "Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?" became a bluegrass standard after it was covered by the Osborne Brothers. She started out her career by playing with Frankie Moore's Log Cabin Boys. She influenced the playing of Grandpa Jones. She appeared in two films, Swing in the Saddle and The Second Greatest Sex.

Tom Paxton discography

Tom Paxton is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning for more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is noteworthy as a music educator as well as an advocate for folk singers to combine traditional songs with new compositions.

References

  1. ↑ "Yellin, Bob". Music Encyclopedia. Most information from Bob Yellin, phone call with present writer, 2 Nov 2005.
  2. ↑ Weissman, Dick (2006). Which Side Are You On? An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-0826416988.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  3. ↑ Cohen, Ronald D. (2008). A History of Folk Music Festivals in the United States: Feasts of Musical Celebration. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   978-0810862029.
  4. 1 2 3 Greenberg, Mark (1986). "Bob Yellin". In Hood, Phil (ed.). Artists of American Folk Music (1 ed.). New York City: William Morrow. pp. 100–103. ISBN   0-688-05916-3.
  5. ↑ Rice, Wayne. "Greenbriar Boys, The". Bluegrass Bios. Retrieved May 30, 2016.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  6. ↑ Greenberg, Mark (October 11, 2011). "Mark Greenberg: Still Picking after All These Years". Upstreet Productions.
  7. ↑ Coltman, Bob (September 5, 2008). Paul Clayton and the Folksong Revival. Scarecrow Press. p.  122. ISBN   978-0810861329.
  8. ↑ "Mountain Music Bluegrass Style". Discogs.
  9. ↑ Liner notes for Greenbriar Boys album Ragged But Right, Vanguard VSD-79159, 1964.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.