Allison de Groot Archives - Bluegrass Today

2024 Steve Martin Prize winners announced

Today comes the announcement of the winners of the 2024 Steve Martin Banjo Prize, given to recognize excellence across the spectrum of banjo styles.

This year’s Prize highlights a pair of young banjoists, one each from the three finger and clawhammer style communities, Tray Wellington and Alison de Groot. Both have been noted for pushing against the envelopes that encompass bluegrass and old time music, bringing fresh ideas to musical forms that have been evolving for generations.

Trey and Allison will each receive a $25,000 cash award, a welcome contribution to any banjo player’s livelihood.

Both of the 2024 recipients will be featured today on a streaming episode of Deering Live on YouTube at 5:30 p.m. (EST). Steve Martin will also appear to award their prizes officially, and we will all get to meet Allison and Trey and hear some of their music.

Martin initiated this Prize back in 2010, specifically to lend his name and his own money to bring attention to worthy players of the instrument he loves so well. After the ten years he had prepared to offer the award, and a total of $500,000 distributed, Steve turned the administration and funding of the Prize over to The Freshgrass Foundation, who continue to raise the necessary funds and find deserving recipients. They are aided by sponsors Deering Banjos and Compass Records.

Previous recipients of the Steve Martin Prize, originally know as the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass Music, include Noam Pikelny, Sammy Shelor, Jens Kruger, Eddie Adcock, Scott Vestal, Kristin Scott Benson, BB Bowness, Terry Baucom, Victor Furtado, Matthew Davis, and many others.

The annual award is chosen by a committee assembled as the Steve Martin Prize Board, which currently consists of Steve Martin, Béla Fleck, Alison Brown, Chris Wadsworth, Noam Pikelny, Anne Stringfield, Tony Trischka, Pete Wernick, Johnny Baier, Kristin Scott Benson, Roger Brown, Jamie Deering, Dom Flemons, Paul Schiminger, and Garry West.

Here’s a video Tray released about a year ago of he and his band playing a tune of his called Crooked Mind…

…and here is Allison in duet with Quinn Bachand playing a set of tunes including Tom Billy’s and Trip to Athlone.

To watch the award ceremony this afternoon, go to the YouTube link for Deering Live, or visit the Facebook pages for FreshGrass Foundation, Compass Records, No Depression, Folk Alley, or the IBMA.

This video below will be live at 5:30 p.m. (EST), and will be viewable when the live presentation has concluded as well.

Congratulations and well done to Allison and Tray!

California Banjo Extravaganza goes virtual for 2020

Normally at this time of year, west coast banjo player, educator, and promoter, Bill Evans, is finishing preparations for his annual California Banjo Extravaganza. This would involve a series of live shows in the Golden State, featuring a number of top banjo pickers with a crack band, and a workshop featuring all and sundry at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley.

Evans, a native Virginian, had long recognized that there was a wealth of banjo talent back east that rarely has the chance to perform along the Pacific coast. So he organized these yearly pilgrimages, both to give audiences out west a chance to hear some stellar artists, and to give the players exposure in a different market.

But this year, with COVID-19 restrictions still in effect, the 9th annual California Banjo Extravaganza will go online for an all-virtual presentation. A terrific lineup is in the offing, featuring the remarkable BB Bowness, banjo player with Mile Twelve, classical banjoist John Bullard, old time banjo stylist Allison de Groot, and Evans himself.

The four banjo artists have each prepared a pre-recorded concert, and all will be streamed online on Saturday, November 14, at 5:00 p.m. (PST). Admission is set up as a “pay-what-you-wish” basis, with a recommended donation of $20. Those in the position to offer greater support are welcome to do so, and those with limited means can offer what they can.

Tickets are available in advance through the Freight & Salvage online, where the concert will be streamed.

Just ahead of the show, there will be a banjo mini camp from 12:00 – 4:00 p.m. (PST), offered via Zoom. Registered attendees can not only participate in the workshop live, they will also have access to the camp videos after they are completed. A fee of $25 gets you access to all three sessions, one each with Bill, BB, and Allison.

Registration for the mini camp can also be obtained at the Freight & Salvage web site.

Bill put together this explainer video with snippets from each of the four performances as a sample of what will be in store on Saturday night.

Full details about these events on November 14 can be found online.

This is a rare opportunity for banjo lovers worldwide to witness an event generally only available to live audiences in California. It will be a good’n.

Track Premiere – Buffalo Gals from Allison & Tatiana

Free Dirt Records has shared a second track from their upcoming project for Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, due later this month. The self-titled album is a mix of fiddle/banjo duets and old time and traditional songs that have struck their fancy.

This time it’s the old favorite fiddle tune, Buffalo Gals, but with a slight twist from the way you may have heard it in before. Their version has a more modal or pentatonic feel than the common adaptation you hear at jams and conventions.

“We learned Buffalo Gals from a 1991 live recording of Matokie Slaughter (1919-1999) and Alice Gerrard at Berea College. In the recording, Alice tells the audience how Matokie uses the unusual banjo technique of fretting the 5th string to catch a melody note. Details like this, combined with her driving up and down picking style, make her one of our favorite players… and what a quirky take on this standard tune!

Thank you to Paul Brown for introducing Matokie’s music to Allison at the Swannanoa Gathering.”

These two young string artists have made quite a name for themselves separately in recent years, both as players and educators, and are now touring together on top of their other projects. Hargreaves has road and studio time in with Laurie Lewis, Gillian Welch, and Darol Anger while de Groot has worked with Bruce Molsky and The Goodbye Girls. Both ladies had also completed a formal music education in college before launching into full time performance careers.

Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves is scheduled for a March 22 release, with pre-orders enabled now online.

8th of January video from Allison and Tatiana

Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves have released a live performance video for the opening track from their upcoming eponymous banjo/fiddle duet project.

Both women have built solid reputations in the old time music community, and have performed together in the past, but this will be their first recording together.

Allison has been visible of late on banjo with Molsky’s Mountain Drifters, led by fiddle icon Bruce Molsky, while Tatiana has spent time with Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands. They are both notable educators as well, with de Groot teaching private lessons and at camps, and Hargreaves on the faculty at the University of North Carolina.

As a twin team, they have selected a set of 13 tunes from all across the southern US, which Tatiana says were not too hard to choose, since she and Allison like similar music.

“We are both drawn to the same types of tunes. Ones you can really get lost in, that catch your ear in a different sort of way. We also improvise through them in the same way—taking elements from the source recording that stand out as bizarre, or perhaps even accidental, and exaggerating them.”

Here’s their video, featuring the old time version of the classic 8th of January.

Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves is set for a March 22 release. Pre-orders are configured now online.

Molsky’s Mountain Drifters video

How about some fine old time music to point us all towards the weekend.

Here’s Bruce Molsky and his Mountain Drifters doing a bang up job on an old chestnut, Across The Plains of Illinois. Bruce credits finding this version in the playing of Garry Harrison and the New Mules. Garry was a popular Illinois fiddler who died in 2012.

In the New Mules recording there was a female lead, which Bruce takes here accompanied by Stash Wyslouch on guitar and Allison de Groot on banjo. The video was shot at The Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, December 13, 2015.

Nicely done.