A CONVERSATION WITH DREW EMMITT (continued)
PM: Whom would you call your favorite songwriters?
DE: Joni Mitchell. Lowell George. Peter Rowan, Tim O'Brien, Bob Dylan. Greg Brown.
PM: He's one of my favorites, too.
DE: The first time I ever saw Greg Brown play was at the Strawberry Festival, when the Left Hand String Band played. He just blew me away. He had a song about summertime that I couldn't believe. It was so good.
PM: What are you listening to lately, and what are you reading?
DE: Let's see. I just got through reading the Harry Potter books. [laughter] My twelve year old daughter got us into them and my wife and I couldn't put them down! As far as listening goes, we've been listening to a lot of Alison Brown lately, and New Grange. My son's way into that, as well.
PM: Is he going to be a player?
DE: Oh yeah, already is. He's got a little fiddle, little mandolin, and a little guitar. And a little hand drum he plays a lot. He sings along, and when Sam comes on the radio, he knows who it is. He's pretty clued in.
PM: Wow, here's an email coming in from Shari of Compass as we speak. It says you're #1 most added at Americana this week, #4 most added Adult, and #27 with a bullet at Americana. Sounds good. Nice to see good music getting good airplay.
DE: Thanks, we're really excited about it.
PM: Did we finish who it is you're listening to lately?
DE: We listen to a lot of Bela Fleck, both his work with the Flecktones and his work with people like Edgar Meyer and Mike Marshall, and others. Victor Wooten's new album, too. Tim O'Brien. Mozart, Bach...and Jethro Burns, and Strength in Numbers.
PM: Is there a kind of music you haven't explored much that you'd like to play or write in the future?
DE: Yeah, I'd like to get into some New Orleans, swampy kind of stuff. We're big Little Feat fans, and have done some shows with them. I'm really inspired by Paul Barrere and Bill Payne, so that's something I'd like to get into more. And Anders Osborne, he's a great New Orleans songwriter and musician, I really admire the way he writes songs.
PM: So, what's gonna happen musically? Will Leftover Salmon stay together for along time?
DE: I hope so. Our aim is certainly to keep it going. It's tough to lose Mark, he was our brother. We lost him to melanoma on March 4th. He couldn't possibly be replaced. When we first met him on the campground at Telluride 13 years ago, we knew immediately we had to have him. He lived in VA at the time, and had come out and won the banjo contest. When he joined Leftover Salmon, he got an electric banjo and quickly developed this rock and roll banjo style that I've never heard duplicated.
This next
tour, we're taking Matt Flinner out with us, he's great on quite a variety
of instruments. And he's got a music degree, which is kind of unusual
for a bluegrass musician. He's done a lot of playing with our bass player
Greg Garrison, who also has a music degree. Although Mark will never be
replaceable, it will be great to have someone as accomplished as Matt
Flinner on the road with us, we're looking forward to that.
 |
print (PDF) |  |
| listen to clips | ||
| leftoversalmon.com | ||
| compass records | ||
| puremusic home | ||
| archives | ||
