Welcome back to our article series on the history of flatpicking. This is the fifth article in the series; in this segment we are going to feature the artists from what I’ve referred to as the “Second Generation”. If you are just joining this series, you may want to go back to the first article in the February issue of Guitar Sessions. In that article I defined flatpicking and then divided its history into the Pioneer, Heroes, Second Generation, and Next Generation eras. In the past few months we have covered the Pioneers and the Heroes.

This month we will talk about the Second Generation pickers but before moving on, I want to mention a few more Heroes who we did not have room to cover in last month’s segment. They include: Larry Sparks, Russ Barenberg, David Bromberg, Pat Flynn, Charles Sawtelle, Mark O’Connor, John Carlini, Phil Rosenthal, Eric Thompson, Joe Carr, and Steve Kaufman. These great players have all played important roles in the development of flatpicking and I encourage you to research their CDs, instructional material, and learn more about their flatpicking guitar styles.

The “second generation” era of flatpicking runs from the early-to-mid 1980s through the first few years of the new millennium. During this era, flatpicking continued to blossom and grow, building on the foundation laid by the Pioneers and Heroes, and then expanding in new directions. The key flatpickers of the second generation include players such as: David Grier, Tim Stafford, Jack Lawrence, Kenny Smith, Brad Davis, Bryan Sutton, Wyatt Rice, James Alan Shelton, Robin Kessinger, Mark Cosgrove, Scott Nygaard, Beppe Gambetta, John Moore, Orin Star, Jim Hurst, Chris Jones, Tim May, Jim Nunally, Sean Watkins, and others.

Again, space does not allow for me to address the backgrounds or playing styles of every one of these great flatpicking guitar players. In this article, as in the previous ones, I’ve had to choose a few players to talk about, and I encourage you to explore the others on your own. All of the flatpickers I have named have been featured in Flatpicking Guitar Magazine at some time or other.

David Grier, the son of renowned banjo player and former Bluegrass Boy Lamar Grier, grew up with a guitar in his hands. He is one of the most creative guitarists playing the acoustic guitar today and one of the few flatpickers who can expertly perform the flatpicking style in a solo setting. Three-time National Flatpicking Champion Steve Kaufman says, “David Grier is the best player out there today because he is so versatile. I call his style the ‘jeet kune-do’ [martial art taught by Bruce Lee] of flatpicking. It is the ‘style of no style.’ He can tastefully adapt his style to fit any situation or any musical context.”

Butch Baldassari, mandolin player and Grier’s former bandmate in The Grass is Greener, says, “I heard someone recently compare David Grier’s playing to that of a guy who is a grand master chess player who is about 20 moves ahead at all times when he is playing the game. I think Grier’s playing is like that. I don’t think he consciously thinks twenty or thirty moves ahead, but his mind works that way. His mind is so far ahead … of everything that is happening. His variations and improvisations are endless.”

Endless variation, incredible versatility, and smooth fluid guitar playing are what other players admire most about David’s style. Throughout his career, David has been highly influenced by the playing of Clarence White. Richard Greene, who played with Bill Monroe in the mid-sixties and was in the band Muleskinner with Clarence White, says, “David Grier is the world’s best player of fiddle tunes and fiddle music on guitar. Clarence White started it off and David Grier finished the job.” Tony Trischka, who has played in a duo setting with David, and in both Psychograss and The Grass is Greener, states, “David’s ability to think on his feet is amazing. He is an absolutely inventive guitar player and the next great guitar player in the evolutionary cycle. There was Doc, Clarence, Tony- and now David.”

When asked to define his own style, David said, “My style is a cross between the fiddle and banjo played on the guitar. I have the rolls of the banjo expressed in my crosspicking and the variation of the old-time fiddle players who could take a tune and play it forever.” Below we have provided a transcription of David’s original tune “Blue Midnight Star.”

To learn more about David Grier, please visit: http://www.flatpick.com/Pages/Featured_Artist/David.html

You’ve heard the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none”; well, Tim Stafford’s playing does not fit that statement because he is a Jack-of-all-trades and has mastered them all. He is a phenomenal rhythm player, he is one of the most tasteful and inventive lead players in bluegrass music, he gets incredible tone from any guitar that he plays, and he knows how to masterfully support a bluegrass band. If someone were to ask me how he or she could best learn to play acoustic guitar in a bluegrass band, I’d say, “Listen to Tim Stafford!”

A native of east Tennessee, Tim has had a long and distinguished career in bluegrass. He started in the early 1980s with Boys in the Band and then later in that decade began playing with Dusty Miller, a band that also featured Adam Steffey and Barry Bales. After a couple of years with that band Tim, Adam, and Barry joined Alison Krauss and Union Station. Tim left Alison’s band after his son Daniel was born in 1992. In about 1994 his current band, Blue Highway, formed and they have become one of the most highly respected bands in bluegrass music.

One of the techniques that Tim has become known for and uses to great effect is the “floating” technique. When asked about this technique, Tim said:

To play floaters, you play up in the mid-range of the neck on lower strings, and that right away gives a different tone than if you played them back here in first position. I like the tone of the beefier strings better. On most guitars, the treble strings just always sound thinner. The sustaining notes help a lot to keep the break from getting too choppy. You just get different voicing in the mid-neck, and the stretches aren’t as bad either.

Those guitar players who would like to learn all of Tim’s “tricks of the trade” as they apply to tuning, tone, taste, timing, and technique can look for Tim’s new DVD Acoustic Guitar Fundamentals. Below we have transcribed an arrangement of the old tune “Whistling Rufus”.

To learn more about Tim Stafford, please visit: http://www.fgmrecords.com/artists/Stafford.html

Kenny Smith came to prominence in bluegrass music when he began to tour with the Lonesome River Band. His rock-solid driving rhythm and his exciting solos fit perfectly with the energy and drive of that band. The guitar player in a group like the Lonesome River Band as it was configured in the late 1990s not only has to be able keep solid time behind Sammy Shelor’s hard -driving, syncopated banjo style, but also had to have the versatility to tastefully accompany Ronnie Bowman’s soulful gospels and ballads. In about 1995 when the band needed someone to fill that position, Kenny Smith was the man they chose.

Sammy Shelor states, “We hired Kenny because he is real forceful with his rhythm playing. He has what I call an ‘ahead of the beat’ type of style. He knows how to push the beat without speeding up.”

It wasn’t just Kenny’s rhythm playing that made fans take notice. His intricate and dynamic lead solos turned heads and immediately made Kenny one of the most highly respected flatpickers in bluegrass. His first solo recording Studebaker featured a couple of original numbers, “Studebaker” and “Me and My Farmall”, that started popping up at flatpick jam sessions soon after the CD was released as many young flatpickers began studying and copying the Kenny Smith style.

Regarding Kenny’s style, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine’s David McCarty had this to say:

Always a restless, inventive creator on guitar, Kenny Smith has opened amazing new horizons on the instrument by refusing to be limited to playing guitar within the confines of traditional ‘position’ playing. Instead, he’s taking concepts from many other guitar sources to create a fresh, innovative new approach to flatpicking that is as revolutionary in its own way as the work of earlier flatpicking pioneers such as Clarence White and Tony Rice. A student of everything from the rock guitar stylings of Eddie Van Halen to the brilliant fingerstyle work of guitarists like Jerry Reed and Merle Travis, Kenny’s trademark sound is built around a fluid style incorporating frequent open notes even when he’s playing licks in the fingerboard’s upper registers. The result is a technical and musical breakthrough allowing Kenny to utilize the instrument’s entire tonal range at any given moment. It’s a sound never before heard in flatpicking; one that will influence guitarists far into the new millennium.

Kenny eventually moved on from his position with the Lonesome River Band and started his own band with his wife Amanda. The Kenny and Amanda Smith Band currently tours the country and is a favorite among bluegrass fans. Below, we present a transcription of Kenny’s arrangement to the standard jam session favorite “Angeline the Baker.”

To learn more about Kenny Smith, please visit: http://www.flatpick.com/Pages/Featured_Artist/Kenny_Smith.html

While the majority of flatpickers from the Second Generation grew up primarily studying the styles of flatpickers who came before them in the Pioneers and Heroes eras, Jim Hurst spent just as much, if not more time studying fingerpicking heroes like Jerry Reed. Jim also played in the country music world professionally before coming back to his bluegrass roots. Because Jim’s influences and experiences were different than those of the typical flatpicker, he brought a fresh new style to the flatpicking world when he joined Claire Lynch’s band around 1996.

When Jim first started playing with Claire’s band he was a little worried about his return to traditional bluegrass and flatpicking. In January of 1999, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine reported that Jim had never considered himself a great flatpicker. It was a style he played well, but not exclusively like many flatpickers do. Anyone who has seen Hurst on stage with the Front Porch String Band knows that the practice has paid off hand¬somely. Hurst’s flatpicking style is fluid and dynamic with a strong sense of melody. Jim himself commented:

I really had to practice after Claire called. I’ve had to spend a lot of time working to make sure that my tone, volume and speed are there. I really want to be identifiable when I play, but I also want to be true to the melody of the song rather than playing flashy licks. To be a great flatpicker takes a lot of effort and a lot of hours. I really appreciate that, especially when I hear players like Tim Stafford. To me he is one of the best players today. As soon as he starts playing, you know immediately who it is.

When he took the job with Claire Lynch, Hurst was concerned about being accepted by the bluegrass community. “With my country background and my fingerstyle background I was a little worried,” he says, “But the bluegrass community has really accepted me. That is the great thing about this music.”

Jim Hurst continues to travel with Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band and for years he has also toured and recorded as a duo with Claire’s bass player Missy Raines. Here we have provided a transcription of Jim’s solo on his original tune “Alarm Clock.”

To learn more about Jim Hurst, please visit: http://www.flatpick.com/Pages/Featured_Artist/hurst.html

Bryan Sutton set the bluegrass guitar world ablaze when he joined Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder in 1995. In 2000, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine reported:

Bryan Sutton is on fire. Consider an acoustic guitar player whose career accomplishments include touring and recording with Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder; playing on two Grammy win¬ning records (Skagg’s Ancient Tones and the Dixie Chicks’ Fly); filling in for the injured Tony Rice for two months with the Bluegrass Sessions Band tour (Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Mark Schatz); appearing on Dolly Parton’s newest recording The Grass Is Blue and performing with her on the Tonight Show, Letterman, and Regis and Kathie Lee; and releasing his own solo project, Ready to Go, on Sugar Hill records. Not to mention also appearing on recordings by Jerry Douglas, Bobby Hicks, Jesse Winchester, Aubrey Haynie, Rhonda Vincent and various other bluegrass, country, folk, and gospel artists. Now consider that all of this has occurred since we last visited with Bryan about two and a half years ago. And, by the way, Bryan is only twenty-six years old.

Now Bryan is about thirty-four years old and he is still on fire. His list of accomplishments in the past seven years is far too numerous to list in this short article, but just know that Bryan has not slowed down one bit. Bryan is one of those players that has it all; speed, tone, excitement, drive, versatility, fluidity, note clarity, tasteful rhythm, creative ideas, and more. It is no surprise that he is the most highly sought-after acoustic guitar player in the Nashville session scene. Everyone wants Bryan Sutton on his or her recording!

Bryan let everyone know what guitar players he likes to record with on his latest CD. All of his major influences on the guitar were featured on his recent recording Not Far from the Tree including: Russ Barenberg, Norman Blake, Dan Crary, Jerry Douglas, David Grier, Jack Lawrence, Tony Rice, Earl Scruggs, George Shuffler, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Sutton, and Doc Watson.

When asked if he was able to get all his heroes on the recording Bryan said, “Other than Mark O’Connor, everyone is on there. I knew that Mark wasn’t playing the guitar anymore so I knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it.” Regarding his selection of duo partners on this recording Bryan added:

Another reason that this seemed like a good idea, from the producer standpoint, was that I feel like I can call all of these guys ‘friends’. Over the years I have gotten to know all of them on some level. That was even more reason to do it and be excited about it. I don’t take any of the success that I’ve had, musically or otherwise, for granted.

Bryan said that in terms of his success he likes to think about a quote from Isaac Newton – “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Below we have included a transcription of Bryan’s arrangement of an old fiddle tune, “High Heel Shoe,” a tune that Bryan learned from his grandfather.

To learn more about Bryan Sutton, please visit: http://www.flatpick.com/Pages/Featured_Artist/Sutton.html

Note: Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and FGM Records have worked to document the best players of the second generation in a series of concert DVDs. Each DVD pairs three of the top Second Generation players performing in concert together. During the show, the three play as a trio, in a duo setting, and each also plays a solo tune or two. The first disc in the series (Live in Concert) included Kenny Smith, David Grier, and Wyatt Rice. The second DVD (Live in Nashville) featured Jim Hurst, Tim Stafford, and Bryan Sutton, and the third (Live in Kansas City) featured Brad Davis, Tim May, and Cody Kirby.