Dreaming about winning the lottery is just that for most people – a dream. It became a reality for banjoist Alan Munde when he won the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize. The windfall allowed him to go to the studio and record his thirteen original compositions and two Elliott Rogers's penned tunes that make up this collection. Alan surrounds himself with many mandolin hugs and the sweet sounds from some of his favorite pickers on these new recordings. Excelsior is a collection of Alan's original music written to showcase his strong remembrances of people or places he encountered in his 50-plus years of music.
It might seem a disadvantage for a fledgling bluegrass banjo player to grow up in Norman, Oklahoma far from the hotbed of East Coast bluegrass, but his region offered a heavy exposure of non-eastern country music from the likes of Bob Wills, Hank Thompson, Lefty Frizzell, Buck Owens, Tennessee Ernie Ford, along with local and regional artists. Alan recalls, “I would watch anything or listen to anything that had a guitar in it.” The Lawrence Welk Show was a favorite because there was often a guitar feature during the show.
The search for a guitar teacher led him to a music store owned by jazz guitarist Mike “Slim” Richey who was a friend to music makers of all kinds. During the heyday of the folk music boom of the early 1960s, Alan was attracted to the banjo and, in turn bluegrass music that featured the fancy banjo of Earl Scruggs and other three- finger pickers. It wasn't long after before he bought his first banjo at Mike Richey's Guitar Center and began searching for area bluegrass banjo players to get started. Alan was fortunate to locate Eddie Shelton who became an important banjo mentor and friend.
During his years at the University of Oklahoma, Alan played with fellow student and world-class fiddler Byron Berline at many functions and fiddle contests. After graduation in 1969, Alan met Wayne Stewart and Sam Bush and began his long career by recording the seminal album Poor Richard's Almanac.
Alan received his draft notice shortly after the session and returned home. He was rejected by the Army, and spent that summer doing odd jobs with music as a sideline. Following an exploratory trip to Nashville, Tennessee, in late 1969 Alan auditioned for the bluegrass heavyweight Jimmy Martin and was offered a job in his band The Sunny Mountain Boys. Alan enjoyed a two-year tenure touring and recording with the band. Leaving Martin in late 1971, Alan reconnected with Byron in California to help form the contemporary bluegrass band Country Gazette.
Alan has been a part of several "if you're in the know, you know" recording events that are part of the extreme bluegrass pickers collection. As a follow-up to Poor Richard's Almanac, Alan and Bush recorded the highly regarded duo project, Sam and Alan, Together Again For The First Time. After that he held down the banjo chair on several historically remarkable recordings such as The New Kentucky Colonels, Live In Sweden 1973 featuring Roland, Clarence, and Eric White; Country Store, Live in Hugo, Oklahoma featuring a youthful Keith Whitley; and legendary fiddler Bobby Hicks's Texas Crapshooter (also featuring Sam Bush, and Roland White). In addition, he recorded many of his own albums including the ground-breaking debut album Banjo Sandwich. He's been there when "being there" was important.
Beginning in 1986 he became an educator teaching in the Creative Arts Department at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas for 20 years. He is counted as one of the most influential players of Scruggs and Keith-melodic playing, which he continues to teach at music camps across America and Europe. In 2022 he was inducted into the American Banjo Hall of Fame in recognition of his many contributions to the banjo world. The Hall of Fame might have wanted to give him a whole wing of their museum if they had waited on Excelsior.
Alan Munde
Excelsior
Alan Munde - banjo
Bruno Avitia - Bass
Josh Baca - Accordion
Billy Bright - Mandolin
Sam Bush - Mandolin
Bo Brown - Guitar
Jeremy Chapman - Mandolin
Dom Fisher - Bass
Paul Glasse - Electric Mandolin
Eric Hokkanen - Fiddle
Noah Jeffries - Mandolin
Kitty Ledbetter - Bass
Emory Lester - Mandolin
Dennis Ludiker - Fiddle
Lloyd Maines - Steel Guitar
Pat Manske - Percussion
Randy McSpadden - Guitar
Ron Pennington - Mandolin
Elliott Rogers - Guitar
Steve Smith - Mandolin
Don Stiernberg - Mandolin
Kym Warner - Mandolin
Longfellow's Excelsior Hornpipe
Lloyd's of Lubbock
Blue Hole Stroll
Miss Kitty's Hornpipe
Hymn for Slim
Byron's Buddies
Holler Up a Possum
Stay with Me Waltz
Bo Knows
Five Fall Down
Birthday Waltz
The Ten Cent Breakfast
Rodrigo and Johnson
Rabbits in a Watermelon Patch
Untitled Waltz
The most important reason to be involved in music making as a player, composer of banjo ditties, and ensemble member, is that playing music is a kind of fun like no other. Certainly, it was grand fun being in the studio with all these top notch musicians and engineers. Thanks so much to all for the fun times especially with musician/engineer/producer Billy Bright, and musician/engineer Pat Manske.
Alan Munde - Banjo
Billy Bright - Producer, Engineer at the Mando Cave Recording Studio, Wimberley, Texas
Pat Manske - Recording and Mixing Engineer at The Zone, Dripping Springs, Texas
All Tunes by Alan Munde c 2023 (Munde's Child Music, ASCAP) unless noted otherwise.
TUNES
1. Longfellow's Excelsior Hornpipe - The nuns at St. Joseph Elementary in Norman, Oklahoma kindly encouraged students to memorize a few poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Excelsior" was one that stuck with me. Since there was already an "Excelsior Hornpipe," I added Longfellow's moniker to my composition. Australian powerhouse mandolinist Kym Warner shows his remarkable conversational musical skills in this performance. Love it.
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior
2. Lloyd's of Lubbock - One of my favorite friends and musicians is steel guitarist/producer Lloyd Maines from Lubbock, Texas. This is for him. He broke several thumb picks in the creation this pitch-perfect addition to the recording. Billy Bright and Pat Manske really rock out in a not-to-be-missed performance.
Lloyd Maines - Steel Guitar
Billy Bright - Mandolin
Dom Fisher - Bass
Pat Manske - Percussion
Recorded at The Mando Cave; The Zone; The Maines Studio, Austin, Texas, Engineer - Lloyd Maines
3. Blue Hole Stroll - Many a time my wife Kitty and I would walk the trails of the Blue Hole Regional Park in our then hometown of Wimberley, Texas. What a completely pleasant stroll it always was. This musical rendering of those wonderful times features a superb cast of players with each capturing their own sense of the saunter. This tune is in part, a collection of leftover notes and musical ideas rattling in my brain after creating banjo arrangements for 70 standards with coauthor Beth Mead-Sullivan for the book, The Great American Banjo Songbook (Hal Leonard Publishing, 2020). I concluded that they don't write 'em like that anymore, so I tried.
Dennis Ludiker - Fiddle
Noah Jeffries - Mandolin
Bo Brown - Guitar
Kitty Ledbetter - Bass
Recorded at The Mando Cave; The Zone; Studio 21, Springfield, Missouri, Engineer - Jeff Smith
4. Miss Kitty's Hornpipe - I had the great pleasure of playing at a festival with the St. Paul/Minneapolis based group The Tune Junkies. It was seemingly a dream group - three very fine players who just sat and played tunes they liked. If you wanted to listen, then great. If not, maybe you'll like the next group. They played through many varied tunes including a number of fiddle tunes. I wrote "Miss Kitty's Hornpipe" with hope that a group like that might find it to their liking and give it a go. The mandolin monster of the north, Emory Lester, shares the playing on this tune and made it into more than I thought it could be. He captures the melody as it should be. After his flashy solos, he then joins me for a final trip through the melody. When playing in a duo format, you have to listen closely to each other. Emory proves he is a great listener. He's also a fine banjo player and should be the vocalist of the year - my opinion.
Emory Lester - Mandolin
Recorded at The Mando Cave, Emory Lester Studio, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Engineer - Emory Lester
5. Hymn For Slim - When I fourteen and first looked in the Yellow Pages of the Norman, Oklahoma phone book searching for the closest music store that offered guitar lessons, I found Mike Richey's Guitar Center located near the University of Oklahoma not many blocks from our house. Mike (later recreating himself as "Slim") became one of my very best friends. He was always a charming, amusing character, a lover of music, a jazz guitarist at heart, "the most dangerous guitar player in Texas" (he would explain), and friend to music makers of all kinds. We were close until his death in 2015. My admiration and appreciation for his mentorship will never end. This solo banjo piece is for him.
Recorded at The Mando Cave
6. Byron's Buddies - Along with Slim, Byron Berline was my longest time musical buddy. I encountered Byron when we were both students at the University of Oklahoma. We played lots of music together after that, first for the fun of it, and later professionally for the fun of it. I wrote this three-part tune (like Byron's three-part "Huckleberry Hornpipe") with Byron in mind. The A part is very much in the Texas contest fiddle type of tune which Byron was so very good at, with the B part taking off into something else, and the C part returning to the fiddle tune style. Sam Bush is with me on this cut. Sam, when a teenager, met Byron at the Weiser, Idaho fiddle contest and became longtime friends. Sam does his slick mandolin imitation of a Texas-style guitar accompaniment, and then a surprising fret-warping harmony through the B part, and back to rhythm on the slightly different final C part. His solo brings all his mastery and stylistic sensibilities to the recording. I hope Byron is smiling. Anybody who ever played with Byron in any circumstance for the fun of it is one of Byron's buddies.
Sam Bush - Mandolin
Recorded at the Mando Cave; Dark Shadow Studio, Nashville, Tennessee, Engineer - Steven Mougin
7 Holler Up A Possum - Elliott Rogers (Dark Holler Music, BMI)
Elliott Rogers is one of my finest, fastest friends. He's a great, great, great (that's three greats) songwriter and tunesmith. "Holler Up A Possum" is one of two special instrumentals Elliott shared with me for this recording. It is a muscular tune inspiring lots of powerful music making by Elliott, Billy, and Dom.
Elliott Rogers - guitar
Billy Bright - mandolin
Dom Fisher - Bass
Recorded at the Zone
8. Stay With Me Waltz - Here is the most full- throated manifestation of the Bright - Mundtone Sound to date: banjo, two mandolins, mandola, electric mandolin, and bass. This one is slippery and shape-changing, never quite staying the same. Paul Glasse plays the electric mandolin in unison with the banjo most of the way (one characteristic of the Bright - Mundtone Sound) and takes a most wonderful solo played in such a way that it drops perfectly back into unison. Billy, Dom, and Kym add the moving harmonic context. Well done, by all, well done.
Kym Warner - Mandolin
Billy Bright - Mandolin, Mandola
Paul Glasse - Electric Mandolin
Dom Fisher - Bass
Recorded at the Zone
9. Bo Knows
Bo Brown has been a staple in the Springfield, Missouri music scene playing in untold numbers of bands beginning in the 1970's. In addition to his multi-instrument musical talents, he teaches survival skills and writes books about foraging and native plants, and he is well respected as an ornithologist and nature expert. His first book, Foraging the Ozarks, was soon followed by Foraging the Tall Grass Prairie. My grandkids, when faced with difficult unanswerable questions about anything in the biota of a given space, surrender with the exclamation "Bo knows." This sort of squirrely, unhinged tune is dedicated to Bo and all that he knows. It falls short, of course. Joining me on this tune and making it much more interesting is the wonderful, graceful, and creative mandolinist Jeremy Chapman with his rhythm accompaniment, followed by his rendering of the melody, then harmony, and finally flights of improvisation over my melody line. When I listen to the result, I can get most pleasantly dizzy in all the darting directions of the music making. Jeremy is of the renowned Chapman Family Band and, with his brothers, the proprietor of the Acoustic Shoppe in Springfield, Missouri.
Jeremy Chapman - Mandolin
Recorded at The Chapman Studio, Springfield, Missouri
Engineer - Bill Chapman
10. Five Fall Down - Elliott Rogers (Dark Holler Music, BMI)
This joyous romp is the melody to one of Elliott's unfinished songs. You will have to ask him what the title refers to. We all take solos on this and add a rousing group chorus that keeps the fun going. Eric Hokkanen on the fiddle seems to embody the true spirit of the moment.
Eric Hokkanen - Fiddle
Billy Bright - Mandolin
Elliott Rogers - Guitar
Dom Fisher - Bass
Recorded at the Zone
11. Birthday Waltz
A solo three-part piece offers contrasting banjo textures as the A section is played with all down-strokes of the thumb, while the other two are in a normal chord and finger-style picking approach. Happy Birthday to all.
Recorded at the Mando Cave
12. The Ten Cent Breakfast
This is the first tune I ever composed. Imagine a sixteen year old Alan Munde sitting in front of the TV with banjo in hand taking in the Saturday afternoon country music shows. Many of the bands featured a steel guitar in the ensemble. They were memorable players such as Tom Brumley of Buck Owens band and Buddy Charlton of the Ernest Tubb group. Here I try a steel guitar approach that was my take on the style of that instrument as perceived at that early time. On this recording Lloyd Maines makes great work of it, at times trading with the hip, young accordionist Josh Baca. A little know fact is that the real first instrument I ever played was the accordion and so wanted one on this recording. I love what Lloyd and Josh did with it. As to the title, Country Gazette's first out of LA gig after the release of our first album was at the York Creek Cafe in Denver, Colorado. We stayed at a motel across the street for the week-long engagement. I took a bus into downtown Denver and visited a museum that featured the painting "The Ten Cent Breakfast." That painting and title has stuck with me these many years, as has the tune.
Lloyd Maines - Steel Guitar
Josh Baca - Accordion
Billy Bright - Mandolin
Dom Fisher - Bass
Pat Manske - Percussion
Recorded at the Mando Cave, The Zone, Lloyd Manies Studio, Lloyd Maines engineer
13. Rodrigo and Johnson
My two grandkids were the inspiration for this tune. Early on the two boys had a make believe lawn and landscaping business with their toy mowers. Rodrigo and Johnson was their business name. I use all my silly banjo tricks, with a common musical form and chord changes to hang it all on. Arkansas native Ron Pennington adds the right sense of exuberance and extra special mandolin expertise (he knew all those chords) needed for the completion of this tribute to two great kids.
Ron Pennington - Mandolin
Recorded at The Mando Cave, Studio 2100, Engineer - Ethan Smith
14. Rabbits In A Watermelon Patch
Real food pales in the light of watermelon. With the help of the wonderful New Mexico-based pickers Steve Smith, Randy McSpadden, Bruno Avitia, and Washington-born Dennis Ludiker, we create the spectacle of a den of rabbits waking, yawning, and then singly, doubly, as a trio, or in group, enjoying their day scampering through the watermelon patch. Love abounds.
Steve Smith - Mandolin
Randy McSpadden - Guitar
Bruno Avitia - Bass
Dennis Ludiker - Fiddle
Recorded at The Mando Cave; The Zone; The Cave, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Engineer - Steve Smith
15. Untitled Waltz
I composed this tune while living in LA in the early 1970's with my Welsh roommate, Martyn Smith. It's quite lovely and a good end to the our efforts on this CD. Jazz and bluegrass mandolin master Don Stiernberg adds his swaddling warmth and a sensitive touch to this recording. Kudos to the ever present Dom Fisher.
Dom Fisher - Bass
Don Stiernberg - Mandolin
Recorded at the Mando Cave; The Zone; Woodside Avenue Music Productions, Evanston, Illinois, Engineer - Steve Rashid