Deering Live RSS

This week we will be talking all things New Orleans tenor banjo with our very own Director of Marketing, David Bandrowski. We will talk about his beginnings as a tenor player in New Orleans, the role of the instrument in jazz, as well as other genres. We will even dig into a few fundamental lessons on the instrument. 

We are excited to feature Deering Banjo artist and 2023 IBMA Banjo Player Of the Year Kristin Scott Benson back on Deering Live to talk about Up The Neck backup playing.

Kristin is one of the best straight-ahead bluegrass banjo players that has ever played the instrument and she is a fantastic teacher so don’t miss out on this opportunity to listen to her play and talk about what she does.

In this week’s show we’ll be talking with Chris Coole about some clawhammer banjo techniques to bring your playing to another level. These techniques will help you create and play different rhythms other than the standard bump-ditty rhythm. We’ll also...

Chris Pandolfi is a founding member of the jamgrass supergroup the Infamous Stringdusters. Chris is a grammy award winning musician, winning the Grammy in 2018 for Bluegrass Album Of The Year. He is also busy with his solo musical projects,...

With the Americana Folk gathering just around the corner, we invite George Grove, Jens Kruger and our own Greg Deering to talk about this years event. During the conversation, we will undoubtedly have great fun sharing stories, memories of previous...

Ketch Secor is a founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show, a Grammy Award winning group that has been inducted as members of the Grand Ole Opry. Ketch is a mutiinstrumentalist whose first instrument was a banjo but is also...

International Banjo Champion Kyle Tuttle is shredding his way through the jamgrass scene. Since moving to Nashville in 2012 Kyle has shared the stage with many epic performers, most notably as a member of the Jeff Austin Band for 3...

Evie Ladin’s polyrhythmic clawhammer banjo style, resonant voice, and percussive dance have been heard from A Prairie Home Companion to Celtic Connections, Lincoln Center to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Known as a driving force behind San Francisco’s Stairwell Sisters, Evie has four solo CDs that feature her banjo playing and songwriting. Raised on fiddlers’ conventions and square dances, Evie’s playing is firmly grounded in tradition, while taking the instrument into new territory. A popular instructor at many music camps, Evie is also a clawhammer banjo instructor for Peghead Nation .

We're happy to welcome Catherine BB Bowness, from the band Mile Twelve, back to Deering Live to give where she is going teach us about "Movable Harmonic Shapes" on the 5-string banjo. These are shapes such as chord positions or...

Jake Blount is an award-winning musician and scholar. He is a recipient of the prestigious Steve Martin Banjo Prize, and a two-time winner of the Appalachian String Band Music Festival (better known as Clifftop).

He is a specialist in the early folk music of Black Americans, and his latest record, The New Faith, was released on September 23, 2022 as part of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings' African American Legacy Series, in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

On this episode of Deering Live we will dig into the life and music of 5-string bluegrass banjoist Rudy Lyle. Rudy Lyle played banjo with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys and made major contributions to bluegrass banjo but has largely been forgotten. Banjoist and member of Peter Rowan's Bluegrass Band, Max Wareham decided to help change this and wrote a book that talks about Rudy's career and banjo style and includes easy to read banjo tab of Rudy's playing.

Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe's acclaimed "latingrass" band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants.

We're glad to feature Enda Scahill from We Banjo 3 on Deering Live this Thursday, Oct. 6th at 4pm ET/1am PT.

Colton Crawford is the banjo player from Canadian roots music four-piece, the Dead South - A rock band without a drummer, a bluegrass band without a fiddler. Their sound, built on a taut configuration of cello, mandolin, banjo, and guitar,...

Tune in this week on Deering Live to see multi-award-winning bluegrass banjo icon, Kristin Scott Benson as she will have a special announcement!

Jake Sawicki is the banjo player for the self-described thrash grass band, The Native Howl who hail from Leonard, MI. Their 2016 release of "Thrash Grass" unleashed the newly-coined genre of the same name, combining the aggressiveness and intensity of thrash metal with the melodicism and precision of bluegrass. Jake is here to talk about pushing the boundaries of how a banjo can be used, appearing on the TV Show "No Cover" and spending the last few months touring with shock rockers GWAR.

We're very excited to feature the longtime banjoist for Alison Kraus & Union Station, Ron Block, on Deering Live. When it comes to bluegrass banjo, Ron is simply one of the best in the business. His feel, tone, and timing drive the music that is rooted deeply in tradition but continues to push it into the future.

Dan is a long-time Deering artist and if you are not familiar with him, he has a fascinating approach to playing banjo. This episode will be well worth tuning in for!

Michael J Miles is a composer and musician who grew up in the heart of urban Chicago and teaches at the infamous Old Town School of Music. His inner jukebox spins with 500 years of pop songs on late night radio, infused with conversations about poetry, politics, and singing around the piano with his Irish family. These songs turn into setlists, and compositions and as they say, the rest is history.

Michael is an electrifying performer, educator, and bender of genres. You simply have to hear him play.

Max Allard is a gifted young 5-string banjoist in the 3 finger style. He has been the winner of the 2018 RockyGrass Banjo Competition and the 2019 FreshGrass Banjo Award. He performs as a solo artist, in a duo with his brother Otto Allard, and has toured the midwest with the Minneapolis based progressive bluegrass band Barbaro.

"A new mature and poetic voice on the 5 string banjo. Beautiful compositions and a very nice touch.”
— Béla Fleck

5-string banjoist Hank Smith returns to Deering Live this week to talk about the different aspects of composing music on the 5-string banjo that isn't in the bluegrass style.