Big Mon - A Mandolin Duet with my teacher, Al White
Recorded in Spring, 2000, at Berea College. I was a senior and close to graduating so I wanted to record some tunes that I had learned—even if they weren’t totally up to the usual bluegrass tempo, a.k.a. “lightning fast.” I actually had the pleasure of attempting to play this song on Monday for the first time in probably a decade at the Radford Fiddle and Banjo Jam . It was fun, but holy cow it was fast!
This recording of Big Mon is not-so-fast, short, and a fun memory for me. We were in the upstairs piano lab of Preston Hall (before the renovations) and just put the tape recorder on a music stand, and played. At first, it was hard to tell which one of the mandolins is him and which one is me. After listening a bit more closely, though, I can hear the difference in both his mandolin (my favorite Gibson f-style I’ve ever played) and mine, (Sigma f-style) and his excellent touch alongside my hit-or-miss technique.
Al White is an outstanding musician, teacher, and fun fellow to be around. You can check out some of his music at: http://bit.ly/bereacastoffs. His songbook, Yesterday’s Noodles, has some of the most fun contra dance and waltz tunes in it around. He probably still has copies of it for sale if you ask him.
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