Jimmy Heffernan
Jimmy Heffernan is a highly respected Nashville session player, sideman, and producer. He’s a versatile multi-instrumentalist, and one of the true masters of the resonator guitar. Jimmy also happens to be an outstanding music instructor who loves to teach, and has a real gift for it. Over the years Jimmy has played with Bill Keith, Red Allen, Bill Grant and Dehlia Bell. In 1980 Jimmy joined Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers which he toured with for two years. 1988 was a momentous year for Jimmy, he played electric guitar for Doug Kershaw for a year, and then joined Joe Diffie’s band, where he stayed for nine years. Jimmy reflects fondly on this time: “We toured every major venue and appeared as a members of the Grand Ole Opry. We played lots of television, including The grand Ole Opry Live, Regis and Kathy Lee, The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, and Hee Haw, to name but a few. Joe sold over eight million records during this time. Upon leaving Joe Diffie’s employment, Jimmy stayed in Nashville, producing albums and working with new artists before finally joining Brad Paisley’s band in 1999. He toured with Brad for two years as well as playing Dobro on Brad’s second ARISTA album, Grammy nominated “Part Two”. Since leaving Brad Paisley’s band, Jimmy has been playing with Mark Cosgrove (The Jerry Douglas Band) and producing records for new artist. During this time he has also toured with the Charlie Louvin and Lucinda Williams. These days, Jimmy Heffernan is shifting gears (getting too old to play on the road), devoting more time to one of the things he loves best, teaching up-and-coming players. Jimmy has conducted his highly popular Dobro Workshops here in the USA and also at “Sore Fingers” in England and in Munich. www.jimmyheffernan.com
Beth Mead
Beth is a Banjo player and teacher currently based in the Philadelphia Area. She studied and taught Banjo and Bluegrass Music at South Plains College, and continues to host jams and teach private lessons on banjo, guitar and ukulele. She is also Kitty Starr, Kitty Starr and the Whereabouts, a band born at Camp Bluegrass! She performs throughout the US and has recorded with Alan Munde, Anne Luna, Chris Sanders, Dede Wyland and her east coast band, Tookany Creek featuring Ray Duffy, John Catterall and Larry Cohen. As a writer and vocalist, she has just finished a collaboration with Alan Munde on a volume of American Popular Songs arranged for the 5 string banjo.
Tim May
Camp Bluegrass favorite, Flatpicker Tim May, has been working in the Nashville area for over 20 years as a sideman, session player, band member and performer. Higher profile projects have included touring with Patty loveless and John Cowan, and working as a regular on the Grand Ole Opry with Mike Snider. Tim was the solo guitarist on Charlie Daniels’ recording of I’ll Fly Away, which was nominated for the Best country Instrumental Performance Grammy in 2005, the same year he was session leader on the critically acclaimed Moody Bluegrass album (he later played on Moody Bluegrass II as well). The Nashville Scene selected Tim the Best Instrumentalist category in their 2012 Reader’s Choice Poll. Tim is co-author of the eight volume course ‘Flatpicking Essentials’, The Guitar Player’s Practical Guide to Scales and Arpeggios, The Flatpicker’s Guide to Old Time Music, and The Flatpicker’s Guide to Irish Music. He has taught regularly at Camp Bluegrass, Kaufman Kamp, Colorado Roots Music Camp, Nashcamp, and the Swannanoa Gathering. He and his wife Gretchen are owners of the Musical Heritage Center of Middle Tennessee.
Alan Munde
Alan Munde – World class banjo stylist featured in the banjo bible, SPC instructor and excellent teacher. Many years teaching experience give Alan special insight into the problems faced by players of all levels. His time tested techniques really work! www.AlanMundeGazette.com
Gerald Jones
Gerald Jones, a native Texan, has been involved with the performance, production, and teaching of music for more years than he will admit . He’s played live or recorded with Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, Tanya Tucker, Grand Master Fiddle Champion Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor, Hank Thompson, Red Steagall, and many others of many genres. Gerald edited Mel Bay’s web magazine Banjo Sessions and frequently contributed to Joe Carr’s web magazine Mandolin Sessions. Gerald is on the board of the Allegro Guitar Society, which presents classical guitar performances in Dallas, Fort Worth and Las Vegas. He also writes and performs many Allegro Guitar Society outreach programs each year. He invented the Acoustic Plus electronic banjo pickup used by Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Alan Munde, Bill Keith, and others. A multi-instrumentalist on banjo, mandolin, guitar, violin and dobro, Gerald has won banjos at the Winfield Banjo Championship. Gerald co-founded the Bluegrass Heritage Foundation and founded Acoustic Music Camp, an instructional institute for acoustic musicians. Plus he teaches at many other camps across the country each year. For more about Gerald, see TheGeraldJones.com.
Nate Lee
Nate Lee is an International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning instrumentalist and renowned teacher of private lessons and music camps. His musical journey started at the age of eight when he got his first fiddle and that path led him through countless lessons and music camps and eventually to an intense study of bluegrass music at the college level and a degree in Commercial Music. While attending the Bluegrass & Country Music Program at South Plains College, Nate joined the Alan Munde Gazette. He toured with the band for six years and played fiddle on their second release “Made To Last”. After moving to Nashville in 2012, Nate toured with Irene Kelley, Town Mountain, and the Jim Hurst Trio. In 2017, Nate joined the award-winning Becky Buller Band as their mandolin player and twin fiddler.
Although Nate is in demand on stage and in the studio, his first love and finest skill is teaching. With more than seventeen years’ experience as a teacher and workshop instructor, Nate has gained a loyal following of students who enjoy his comprehensive teaching methods and relaxed, encouraging demeanor. Nate doesn’t just teach you a song; he teaches you how to play melody, chords, improvise, and groove on that song. With an affinity for turning beginners into jammers, and jammers into professionals, Nate has developed a curriculum that teaches you to play well with others and become the player you’ve always wanted to be!
www.PlayNately.com www.TheNateLee.com
Dede Wyland
Dede Wyland – Dede Wyland’s pure and compelling voice has enchanted audiences around the globe, and her driving rhythm guitar style becomes the rhythmic core of whatever group she joins forces with. Dede is no newcomer to the bluegrass scene. She’s been in bluegrass, first in regional bands around her native Milwaukee area, since the 1970’s. In the 80’s she moved to new York and became a charter member of the internationally known and groundbreaking group Tony Trischka and Skyline.
During her many years as a touring musician Dede graced the stage of some of America’s most prestigious bluegrass and acoustic music venues and festivals, and has performed in Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, England, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, and Japan. Radio listeners have heard Dede on the nationally broadcast shows A Prairie Home Companion and Mountain Stage, and on Chicago’s The Flea Market. Her national television appearances include two installments of the Nashville Network’s Fire On The Mountain. Throughout the 1980s Dede was a perennial nominee in the annual awards poll of the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA).
In 1990 Dede moved to the greater Washington DC area, and although no longer on the road, her recordings and concert performances with the cream of Washington’s bluegrass players made her a nine-time winner of the Washington Area Music Association’s “Wammie” award for Bluegrass Singer of the Year since 1999. Check out Dede’s Online Video School of Voice http://www.dedewyland.com
Steve Smith
Steve Smith is not only known as one of this country’s top mandolin players and multi-instrumentalist but also as an outstanding educator. Along with his work with the Roots/Bluegrass group The Hard Road Trio, the duo Tim May and Steve Smith and the Alan Munde Gazette, Steve has been on faculty at the California Coast Music Camp, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Music Camp, Colorado Roots Music Camp, Hill Country Acoustic Music Camp, Zoukfest and Camp Bluegrass (for twenty years running). Smith has appeared at festivals and venues including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, High Mountain Hay Fever, Rocky Grass, Swallow Hill, Freight and Salvage, Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival, the Big Horn Mountain Festival, and the Minnesota Old-time and Bluegrass Festival and the Bluegrass Meltdown to name a few. With the Las Cruces Symphony, he has performed works of William Grant Still, Gershwin and George Crumb and the musical Chicago. Along with forty plus years of coast to coast touring, Smith has performed in Ireland, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Cuba and the US Virgin Islands. He has also performed in musical theater in Cotton Patch Gospel (multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and actor) and the Robber Bride Groom; he composed and performed the score for a production of the Sam Sheppard play Curse of the Starving Class. Steve has appeared on over 40 albums as performer and producer including guitar legends Jim Hurst, Mitch Perry, and Tim May, banjoist Bill Evans, Alan Munde and Tim O’Brien. His music has been heard on countless radio stations across the US and on the Discovery Channel, The History Channel and even the Weather Channel.
Ned Luberecki
Ned Luberecki
Steve Martin describes Ned luberecki’s playing as “an absolutely joyous, riveting, beautifully syncopated example of the beauty of the banjo. “Ned is one of today’s leading players and teachers: a master of the five-string banjo who is adept in both modern and traditional styles. In 2018 he was voted Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA). He has taught hundreds of players at most every major banjo and bluegrass music camp in the world and his Complete Banjo Method, in three volumes from Alfred Music, and video banjo courses from TrueFire.com are garnering rave reviews. Ned tours internationally witht he award-winning Becky Buller Band and in Nedski & Mojo, his duo with Sam Bush band guitarist Stephen Mougin. Ned counts as his influences not only the usual banjo heroes with names like Earl, J.D. and Tony, but also Eddie Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck. These diverse influences emerge in his unique, sometimes whimsical approach that draws from rock, jazz and television themes(!) as well as bluegrass. Ned’s latest release is the critically acclaimed CD Take Five. Learn more about Ned at http://nedski.com.
Anne Luna
Although that thing’s bigger than she is, Anne Luna makes playing the bass look easy. Having the good fortune of being raised in a musical family, Anne has been toting her bass to jams, festivals, and gigs for over half her life. While attending South Plains College where she received her AA in Commercial Music (2004), Anne was voted Female Instrumentalist of the Year for two consecutive years. To complement her instruction at SPC, Anne studied classical bass techniques at Texas Tech University (where she earned a degree in biology!). She has recorded with Alan Munde, Kenny Maines and Amanda Shires and performed with the Spring Creek Bluegrass Band, Doctor Skoob and the Acoustic Groove, the April Verch Band, Steve Smith and Hard Road, and Hot Foot Toby. She currently performs with The Hard Road Trio. She has taught at Hill Country Acoustic Music Camp, Camp Bluegrass, Desert Night Acoustic Music Camp, and several workshops across the country. She also teaches private lessons. She has performed at Tucson’s Desert Bluegrass Festival, Mammoth Bluegrass Festival, High Mountain Hay Fever, Santa Fe Old Time and Bluegrass Festival, Black Hills Bluegrass Festival, Bluegrass on the Green, The Rice Festival, Berkeley’s Freight and Salvage, and Poor David’s Pub in Dallas. Her playing has been described as graceful, elegant and at the same time, hard-driving. As a songwriter and vocalist, her clear, unique voice both stands on its own and rounds out the Hard Road Trio’s vocal work. He songs have been nominated for two New Mexico Music Awards. As an accomplished, enthusiastic instructor, Anne’s energy and her easy-going manner create a welcoming learning environment for all of her students.