Jim Hurst
ACOUSTIC GUITAR / SINGER-SONGWRITER
Jim Hurst’s unique picking style and mastery of bluegrass guitar wows audiences and is revered by both novice guitar players and his musical peers. His eclectic career has made him a remarkable performer, an experienced instructor and a highly sought after session musician. His affability and gregariousness make him one of the most approachable musicians of his caliber.
Garnering numerous nominations, Jim received IBMA’s prestigious “Guitar Player of the Year” awards for 2001 and 2002. This award is voted on by IBMA members including his peers and contemporaries revealing their appreciation of Jim’s abilities.
After recording and touring with several Country and Bluegrass artists, Jim decided in 2010 to embark on a solo career to focus mostly on his own musical expression and art. As a musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and producer, Jim has recorded 7 CDs including: Open Window, Second Son, A Box of Chocolates, Intrepid, Looking Glass, JHT-1, and Atlantic Crossing. Jim’s virtuosity shines as he consistently sways audiences with his deft finger work and smooth vocals.
Jim performs his show full time and teaches at guitar workshops and music camps in North America and Europe. While he occasionally collaborates with other bluegrass greats, his solo and Jim Hurst Trio performance are what keeps audiences mesmerized.
Robert Bowlin
Bowlin started playing ukulele when he was one, and by the time he was five years old he had picked up the guitar.[1]In 1978, Bowlin won second place in the National Guitar Flat Pick Championship at the Walnut Valley Festival, in Winfield, Kansas. The next year, in 1979, he won first place in the festival’s Finger Style Guitar Championship. In the 1980s, Bowlin was a sideman to artists like Maura O’Connell and Kathy Mattea, the latter whom he appeared with on the popular television program, “Austin City Limits“. In 1993, Bowlin was chosen to fill the fiddle spot in Bill Monroe‘s Bluegrass Boys. This job would last until 1996. The band played the Grand Ole Opry, and a few months later, Monroe died.Following Monroe’s passing, Bowlin turned to recording sessions with Tom T. Hall, the Osborne Brothers, Boxcar Willie, and Hank Thompson, among others. In addition, Bowlin has toured with artists such as Ray Price, Bobby Bare, Faron Young, and Ricky Van Shelton.At one point, he was a member of the swing band The Time Jumpers, a band that often plays The Station Inn and currently features Vince Gill.
In 2007, FGM Records, the recording arm of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, released his debut CD, “Six String Soliloquy”, which features sixteen instrumentals played on acoustic guitar with a flatpick.From 2004 through present, Bowlin left the road with the major country and bluegrass stars and chose to perform with singer-songwriter Wil Maring [1]. In this duo formation, he is able to feature his own original songs and guitar instrumentals.In 2008, Bowlin won first place in the Fiddle, Flatpicking Guitar and Mandolin categories at the Uncle Dave Macon Days Festival in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
He is an accomplished instructor, teaching a semester in the bluegrass program at East Tennessee State University, and he has held workshops at music camps and stores across the United States.
Scott Anderson – Banjo
Florida native Scott Anderson began his professional banjo career with the traditional bluegrass sound of Tom Henderson’s Bluegrass Parlor Band in 1989. Shortly thereafter he co-founded Endless Highway, releasing one CD project and showcasing at IBMA.
Following the critical success of his first solo project Rivers in 2001, he performed with The Scott Anderson Band while also doing stints in The Jim Hurst Band and Keith Sewell Band. A breakthrough CD project with his daughter Amanda in 2009 led to the formation of The Amanda and Scott Anderson Band. In 2010 with an All-Star cast, Scott dredged up a swampy soup of originals and favorites on his second solo project, Tales from the Swamp and added those songs to the setlist. In 2019 he joined forces with some very talented old friends and family to form his current band, Medicine Springs and he also still tours with The Jim Hurst Band. Scott is not only a banjo instructor but has been a serious student of the banjo for decades, studying the great players of Scruggs, Reno and single string, and melodic styles. Scott began teaching banjo as a teenager and teaches private lessons and classes at music camps across the country. Scott has also performed with Claire Lynch, Vassar Clements, Larry Rice, Byron Berline, Adam Steffey, Clay Hess, Newtown, Chubby Wise, Allen Shadd, Shawn Lane & Richard Bennett, Chief Jim Billie, and the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra (yes, with a banjo!) among many others. Scott has been featured in Banjo Newsletter and has contributed many articles to the magazine as well, including articles and interviews with Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, Bill Evans, Barry Abernathy, Greg Cahill, Scott Vestal, Cory Walker and Ron Stewart.
Lauren Price Napier
Music has long been present in the life of Lauren Price Napier. Growing up, she learned to sing duet-style harmony with her twin sister, Leanna, by listening to their parents sing together. Although Lauren and Leanna were gifted instruments as children, it wasn’t until they attended a few workshops and festivals in their mid-high school years that they began to take a strong interest in bluegrass music.
Lauren is a 2017 graduate of Morehead State University with a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Traditional Music and a minor in Business Administration. She holds the role of co-founder, mandolinist, and vocalist with The Price Sisters band – most of her professional work in the music industry comes from within that position. While still in college, Lauren and Leanna signed with Rebel Records, released an EP, and subsequently began touring as The Price Sisters. The Sisters’ released their first full-length album for Rebel, “A Heart Never Knows,” in spring of 2018. Fronted by Lauren and Leanna, The Price Sisters five-piece band to-date has performed at numerous venues and festivals across the United States, China, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
In 2016 and 2017, Lauren was among those instructing at the Monroe Mandolin Camp. She has taught classes at Bean Blossom Bluegrass Bootcamp, the Bobby Osborne Mandolin Roundup, and at various festivals where The Price Sisters have performed. Lauren has worked as an artist-in-residence with the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum and in June of 2019, was featured for an interview on Mandolin Cafe. Lauren was nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) 2019 Momentum Vocalist of the Year and IBMA’s Momentum Instrumentalist of the Year for 2020 in addition to The Price Sisters’ band nomination for Momentum Band of the Year in 2019. When she’s not on the road performing, Lauren teaches skype, in-person, and private instrumental lessons for children and adults.
Patrick Sauber
Patrick Sauber is one of the new breed of bluegrass pickers – talented, fast, inventive, creative, fluid, frictionless, highly developed fast twitch muscles, great singer – he does it all. Patrick plays guitar (he’s Roland White’s favorite Clarence White guitar stylist), banjos with the best, mandolins like it was his first instrument, and then can sing any part in any band. How could he not be that good, he had the great advantage of being the son of bluegrass and old time great Tom Sauber. He plays regularly in the Laurie Lewis Band.
Roger Bush
Roger Bush is one of the blue bloods of the California bluegrass scene. Beginning in the late fifties as a banjo and a guitar player, he was recruited by Roland and Clarence White to join their emerging group, The Kentucky Colonels, as a bass player and singer. Roger toured with the Colonels performing at clubs and events in Southern California and appearing at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. The live recordings of this group were treasured resources for the serious bluegrass aficionados. Many of those rare recordings have since been released making the bulk of the Colonels recorded output. Roger
also performed in the Doug Dillard Expedition during the late 1960s. Roger toured with the Flying Burrito Brothers appearing on their highly acclaimed live recordings, Last of the Red Hot Burritos, and Live in Amsterdam. In 1971, Roger along with Byron Berline founded the seminal bluegrass unit, Country Gazette, recording a wealth of gold-plated music for bluegrass fans beginning with United Artists release in 1972 of A Traitor In Our Midst followed by Don’t Give Up Your Day Job. Roger’s singing, mc work, and buoyant bass slapping have given the needed lift to any ensemble he appears in. Roger will be with us on Wednesday and Thursday of Camp Bluegrass sharing in the Kentucky Colonels tribute and showing us all how you really are supposed to slap a bass.
Herb Pedersen
Herb Pedersen began his career in Berkeley, California in the early 60’s playing 5 string banjo and acoustic guitar with people like David Grisman, Butch Waller, David Nelson, and Jerry Garcia. Herb has done well in adding his talents to the recordings of many folk and country music artists of today.
For the last thirty years, Herb has lived in southern California, and participated in select music groups, either in recording, or traveling on the road doing concerts. His recording discography is like a who’s who of the singer/songwriter scene, so prevalent in the 70s and 80s. His own groups, like The Desert Rose Band, and The Laurel Canyon Ramblers, show why Herb is so respected in the industry.
With his lifelong pal, Chris Hillman, Herb is in the process of continuing the type of music they both grew up playing and singing. There is a work in progress most of the time and that the way Herb likes it.
Television and motion picture sound tracks are something Herb has been involved in since the early 70s. Shows like The Rockford Files, Smokey and the bandit, the Maverick movie with Mel Gibson, Hunter, The Simpsons, have used Herb either on 5 string banjo, or vocals for many years.
Artist like Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Johnny Rivers, Dan Fogelberg, Jame Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Jennifer warned, John Prine, and Jesse Winchester have used Herb’s talents in the past, and in all probability will continue to do so…..
From Carnegie Hall to the Ryman Auditorium, Herb’s been on the scene enjoying every minute of it.
Blaine Sprouse
“If You’re Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have a Fiddle in the Band)” proclaims the 1984 Billboard Hot country Single #1 song. So who did supergroup Alabama call upon to fiddle the memorable chart topper and the entire Roll On Album? Blaine Sprouse.
Sprouse continued to carve an impressive niche, performing with both Grand Ole Opry members and young turks of bluegrass, including those who would pick together regularly at Nashville’s world famous Station Inn; The Dreadful Snakes, The Sidemen, Nashville Jug Band and The Cluster Pluckers, with whom
Blaine played for former president and vice-president Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Blaine’s professional career started with Jimmy Martin and continued with Hames Monroe, Jim and Jesse, the Osborne Brothers, Charlie Louvin and as a fill-in Blue Grass Boy for Bill Monroe.
Sprouse fulfilled a lifelong desire to return to school to complete his education and earn a law degree. Bit in 2009, music interest resurfaced when his fourth solo recording, Dogwood Winter, was re-issued as Appalachian Mountain Fiddler.
Camp Bluegrass is thrilled to have Blaine Sprouse join us this year.
Becky Buller
Becky Buller is a multi-instrumentalist and singer from St. James, MN, who has traversed the globe performing bluegrass music to underwrite her insatiable songwriting habit. She has co-written songs for Grammy award-winning albums by The Infamous Stringdusters (2018) and The Travelin’ McCourys (2019). Becky has received 8 IBMA awards, including the 2016 Fiddler and Female Vocalist Of The Year. She was a 2020 nominee for SPBGMA’s Fiddle Player Of The Year. She tours extensively with the Becky Buller Band and is about to release Distance And Time, her third album for the Dark Shadow Recording label. Equally passionate about music education, Becky has 20 years experience teaching fiddle, singing, and songwriting at workshops worldwide. She serves on the board of the IBMA Foundation and an alumnae of the Leadership Bluegrass class of 2003. BeckyBuller.com
Roland White
Returning to Camp Bluegrass this year is Bluegrass mandolin master Roland White. Roland has played in some of the most influential and popular groups in the music’s history, and has played a notable part in creating that history. To his credit he has played with many of the legends of bluegrass; the Kentucky Colonels, Bill Monroe’s Band, The Nashville Grass, the White Brothers, Country Gazette, the Grammy Award winning Nashville Bluegrass Band. In 2000 Roland formed The Roland White Band and has just recorded a new album entitled “Straight Ahead Bluegrass”. Roland has been honored by SPBGMA and IBMA for his achievements and contributions to bluegrass music, but has no plans to retire–Roland and his band continue to perform and teach around the world.
Roland was inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame for 2017. Roland joins his brother Clarence, who was inducted last year, in a long list of great bluegrass dignitaries enshrined in the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. Roland and Clarence were a big part of the California-based band, The Kentucky Colonels.