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The Greenbriar Boys | |
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| Origin | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Folk, bluegrass |
| Years active | 1958–1970 |
| Labels | Vanguard |
| Past members | John Herald Bob Yellin Eric Weissberg Paul Prestopino Ralph Rinzler Frank Wakefield Jim Buchanan Joe Isaacs |
The Greenbriar Boys were an American northern bluegrass music group. who first got together in jam sessions in New York's Washington Square Park. The group disbanded in 1970. [1]
In 1958, guitarist and vocalist John Herald formed The Greenbriar Boys, along with Bob Yellin (banjo) and Eric Weissberg [2] [3] (fiddle, mandolin, banjo). [4] Weissberg was soon replaced by Paul Prestopino [5] , who, in turn was later replaced by Ralph Rinzler (mandolin) to form their most successful combination. [4] The trio often played the Greenwich Village scene, but were good enough to be the first northern group to win the Union Grove Fiddlers' Convention competition, [4] where Yellin also took top honors for banjo. [6]
They were credited as guest artists on two tracks from Joan Baez's 1961 album Joan Baez, Vol. 2 . [4] [7] In 1962, they released their first (eponymous) album on Vanguard Records. [4] [8] Three more albums followed: Dián and the Greenbriar Boys in 1963 for Elektra (with Dián James, died 18 May 2006), [9] Ragged but Right! in 1964, and Better Late Than Never in 1966 (with the additions of mandolinist/vocalist Frank Wakefield, who replaced Rinzler, and fiddler, Jim Buchanan). [4] The 1966 album included the first recorded version of Mike Nesmith's "Different Drum", [10] which was recorded again in 1967 by the Stone Poneys, and became a hit. [10] [11] This album was also the source for a subsequent Stone Poneys single, "Up To My Neck In High Muddy Water," with author credit to Wakefield, Herald, and Yellin. [10]
By the last album, Rinzler had left to become director of the folklife area at the Smithsonian Institution which now bears his name. Rinzler was replaced in 1965 by the Tennessee-born mandolin virtuoso Frank Wakefield who, at the age of 31, was already a leading figure in bluegrass music, having performed since the age of 16 with such bluegrass stars as The Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin and Red Allen and the Kentuckians. He had made a Carnegie Hall appearance with Allen, had done guest spots on various TV programs and had appeared on dozens of records, including the first-ever all-bluegrass album produced by Smithsonian-Folkways Records. Wakefield's arrival therefore brought some welcome southern appalachian authenticity to what until then was a northern, urban and folkish-oriented group. Over the next four years, the close friendship and musical collaboration between John Herald, Bob Yellin, Jim Buchanan and Frank Wakefieldb resulted in some successful recordings and national television appearances. In addition to his mandolin playing, Wakefield's southern-accented lead and harmony vocals lent a distinctively rural sound to the Greenbriar Boys. Wakefield was also responsible for bringing young Kentucky-born guitarist and lead singer, Joe Isaacs, into the group by 1968. The Greenbriar Boys disbanded in 1970 as Wakefield launched what was to become a successful solo career. The Greenbriar Boys reunited occasionally in later years. John Herald released albums with The John Herald Band and a solo album, in 2000, Roll On John, before committing suicide in 2005. [12]
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".
Joan Baez, Vol. 2 is the second studio album by Joan Baez. 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".
Joan Baez/5 is the fifth solo album and third studio album by American folk singer Joan Baez, released in October 1964. It peaked at number 12 on the Billboard 200 chart. The single "There But for Fortune" reached number 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and became a top-ten single in the UK.
John Herald was an American folk and bluegrass songwriter, solo and studio musician and one-time member of The Greenbriar Boys trio.
Peter Hamilton Rowan is an American bluegrass musician and composer. He plays guitar and mandolin, yodels and sings.
The Country Gentlemen was a progressive bluegrass band that originated during the 1950s in the area of Washington, D.C., United States, and recorded and toured with various members until the death in 2004 of Charlie Waller, one of the group's founders who in its later years served as the group's leader.
The Gaslight Cafe was a coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Also known as The Village Gaslight, it opened in 1958 and became notable as a venue for folk music and other musical acts. It closed in 1971.
"Different Drum" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Michael Nesmith in 1964. It was first recorded by the northern bluegrass band The Greenbriar Boys and included on their 1966 album Better Late than Never! Nesmith offered it to the Monkees, but the producers of the TV show, who had wide control over the group's musical output early on, turned him down.
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.
Ralph Rinzler was an American 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.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Wakefield is an American mandolin player in the bluegrass music style. Wakefield is known for his collaborations with a number of well-known bands, including Red Allen, Jimmy Martin, Don Reno, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, The Stanley Brothers, and the Greenbriar Boys.
Harley Allen, better known as Red Allen, was an American bluegrass singer and guitarist known for his powerful tenor voice.
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".
Rocky Mountain High is the sixth studio album released by American singer-songwriter John Denver in September 1972. It was his first US Top 10 album, propelled by the single "Rocky Mountain High", and in addition reached no. 11 in the UK and no. 1 in Canada. The album's cover photograph was taken at Slaughterhouse Falls, Rio Grande Trail, Aspen, Colorado.
Farewell Andromeda is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter John Denver, released in June 1973. The LP made Billboard's Top 20, reaching No. 16, with three singles subsequently released: "I'd Rather Be a Cowboy" [#62 POP, #25 AC], "Farewell Andromeda" [#89 POP, No. 20 AC] and "Please, Daddy" [#69 POP, No. 69 C&W].
Joseph 'Val' Valiante was a bluegrass musician and singer from New England, known for his mandolin playing and his high tenor voice.
Evergreen, Vol. 2 is the second album from the Stone Poneys, released five months after The Stone Poneys. It was the most commercially successful of the Stone Poneys' three studio albums.
Live...Almost!!! is the second album by bluegrass quartet The Dillards, recorded live at The Mecca, Los Angeles, in front of a clearly appreciative audience. The Dillards perform with a lot of spirit, warmth and enjoyment, which seems to have been their usual approach: "There isn't a song that the Dillards do that they don't thoroughly enjoy, and they do them with equal enthusiasm on the back porch, or in concert before five thousand people".
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 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!!!
Anton Robert "Bob" Yellin is an American banjo player and founding member of The Greenbriar Boys bluegrass music group.
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