Remember those cute little boys who captured the world’s attention on YouTube playing Earl Scruggs banjo tunes from their bedrooms in New Jersey? Those were the Mizzone brothers and they were an immediate sensation back in 2011 when their family filmed Jonny (then aged 9) burning up a banjo that was as big as he was, along with his brothers Robbie (12) on fiddle and Tommy (14) on guitar.
The boys, then know as Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, made multiple appearances on network television and attracted millions of viewers to their YouTube channel.
Now, the Mizzone boys have grown into fine young men and they are still playing the music they learned as youngsters, but with their own twist. They’ve dropped the Boys from the band name, and go as Sleepy Man, having added a bass player and a drummer to the group.
Here’s their latest video, just in time for Christmas, a new bedroom jam on the holiday classic Carol Of The Bells. It’s a different take on the song, full of banjos and fiddles, peppered with a rockin’ beat.
You can find out more about Sleepy Man online, including videos of their original music.
The latest edition of Uncharted from UPROXX is a profile of everyone’s favorite New Jersey grassers, Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, now going as Sleepy Man. The three teens, Johnny, Robbie, and Tommy Mizzone, have gone from cute kids to more mature performers, something the online publication notes in this roughly six minute min-documentary.
The video includes an interview with their music teacher, Tom Polinski, and discussion with the boys about their future plans in music – plus reactions from their young peers about their involvement in bluegrass music.
The New York state Olympic Regional Development Authority is stepping back into the music business, announcing that the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, which headquartered the 1980 Winter Olympics, will host a Bluegrass Jam concert on Oct. 25 featuring 10 bands, including several of the nation’s top bluegrass acts.
In what’s being called the first-ever Lake Placid Bluegrass Jam, Grammy winners Sam Bush and the Del McCoury Band will headline the day-long event in the Olympic Center’s 1932 Rink along with the North Country’s own Gibson Brothers, Amy Helm, the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, Big Leg Emma, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, Hot Day at the Zoo, Eastbound Jesus and The 52 Pick-Up.
“If this is successful, we can move forward with many more of these,” said ORDA Communications Manager Jon Lundin.
The Olympic Center was a popular concert venue in the 1980s and 1990s, with top country, pop and rock musical acts such as Bryan Adams, Tina Turner, the Beach Boys, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Huey Lewis and the News, Whitney Houston, Alan Jackson and Bob Dylan. In 1983, more than 8,800 fans converged on Lake Placid to see the Grateful Dead perform. In 1989, New Kids on the Block packed more than 10,000 screaming fans into the 1980 Rink and played to another sold-out crowd the following year. In 1995 and 1996, ORDA sold out their Phish concerts.
Since 2000, however, concerts with national headliners have been rare at the ORDA venues, mainly because the music business has changed dramatically over the past 30 years but also for other reasons. The Snoe.down music festival at the Olympic Center and Whiteface Mountain in 2006 and 2007, led by the jam band moe., was not invited back “for a multitude of reasons,” Lundin said in 2009, one of them being concerns about drug activity among fans. Snoe.down eventually moved to Vermont.
“We’ve always been searching for concerts, and for a lot of different reasons they haven’t come about,” Lundin said. “They haven’t fit the model, and budget-wise. Concerts today are so expensive. The best way to describe it is they don’t just buy a single venue anymore; they buy multi-venues.”
ORDA staffers have found that many of the musical acts they’ve been trying to get are only available on less-than-ideal nights – “the leftovers,” as Lundin put it – such as Sundays or Mondays.
“That would be almost impossible to draw an audience and to meet the budget that we would have to meet to make that show successful,” Lundin said.
Enter bluegrass, a music genre that typically has two seasons: a festival season in the late spring, summer and early fall, when bands play in outdoor venues; and a concert season the rest of the year when bands play in indoor venues. The pricing is generally cheaper than pop, country and rock bands, and the fans who follow bluegrass musicians aren’t usually the type who keep the village police busy with alcohol- and drug-related arrests.
“I think it’s a good fit for this area,” Lundin said. “Bluegrass brings them in. It’s really a family-oriented genre of music. It’s lively music. … People follow it, and people follow it passionately.”
ORDA still has to pay the bill. Lundin expects to draw a crowd of 2,000 or more to the 1932 Rink, which will require the authority to extend its public relations and marketing reach to nearby cities such as Plattsburgh, Burlington and Albany. Lundin also hopes the use of social media will attract visitors from other parts of the Northeast.
ORDA didn’t hire a tour promotor to round up the collection of bluegrass bands. Instead, ORDA staffers have been organizing this event on their own. ORDA Events Director Katie Million spearheaded the project, working with Olympic Center Manager Dennis Allen. Million is also the vice chair of the Songs at Mirror Lake Music Series, held Tuesday evenings at Mid’s Park in the summer, so she’s already a key player in the local music booking scene.
“Katie is a music buff,” Lundin said. “Katie loves music.”
ORDA staff signed a mix of bands that would help them fill seats, plus make the event affordable for the authority and the fans.
“Headliners, bands that people were aware of – the Gibson Brothers, obviously, the fact that they’re from this area and are such a big draw,” Lundin said. “And these new acts as well.”
This article was adapted from a piece published September 11, 2014 in the Lake Placid News.
Those of us who’ve been paying attention have watched The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys grow up on video this past few years. The three talented Mizzone brothers from New Jersey first hit the scene on YouTube four years ago, and their star has continued to rise as they go through their teens.
What started as cute kids playing instrumental bluegrass has morphed into a more mature roots style, with the guys writing and singing their own material.
Today the Boys released a new video for the song, Man In Your Corner, which they introduce as having being written in support of younger brother Sammy, who suffers from epilepsy. The video is part pitch for the Epilepsy Foundation of America, and part lyric video for anyone who wants to sing along.
The song is included on the latest Sleepy Man Banjo Boys EP, By My Side.
As we noted on Sunday, Sleepy Man Banjo Boys were the musical guest on last night’s edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
They performed for a very enthusiastic audience, debuting the title cut from their upcoming album, By My Side. Their new sound, featuring middle brother Robbie on lead vocal, is as much Mumford & Sons as it is Earl Scruggs, with a likely appeal for younger music fans.
Here’s the video from last night.
By My Side is available as a single now on iTunes. Look for the full album to hit on June 24.
Fans of teenaged grassers Sleepy Man Banjo Boys will want to stay up late, or set their DVRs, to catch the boys on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show on Monday night.
They will surely be featuring a song from their upcoming album, By My Side, due for a June 24 release. This one is set to be showcase the Mizzone boys’ vocal abilities as well as their fiery picking. As was the case on their most recent record, The Farthest Horizon, the new one will feature the guys’ songwriting as well.
The Kimmel show airs on Monday evening (4/28) at 11:35 p.m. (ET), and the music segment typically closes out the one hour program.
Pre-orders are enabled now on the Boys’ web site for By My Side.
Justin who…? Will the next teen heartthrobs be a trio of bluegrass brothers from New Jersey?
The Sleepy Man Banjo Boys captured the world’s attention in 2010 when home movie style videos of them practicing in their bedroom struck gold on YouTube. The primary focus of attention at the start was the band’s namesake, 8 year old Jonny Mizzone who played the fire out of a banjo that was nearly as tall as he was.
Within a few months, Jonny and his older brothers Robbie (11) and Tommy (13) found themselves on national television, appearing on the Letterman and Huckabee shows, with a debut recording shortly thereafter.
Three years later, these cute young kids are “mature” entertainers, with another CD, and an urge to sing as well as play. A look at their new sound was revealed yesterday, with a new song written and sung by Robbie Mizzone, now 15, who plays fiddle with the group, and his uncle Chris Mizzone. It’s called Run, and finds the boys still in the bedroom, but with a somewhat more distinctive sound.
Run is available now as a digital single in iTunes.
Some of the youngest representatives of bluegrass music had the chance to showcase their skills on the Perelman stage at Carnegie Hall over the weekend. Sleepy Man Banjo Boys performed during the Music of Hope concert on Saturday, a benefit for the Golden Hat Foundation to help in their efforts to publicize the potential and intellectual capacities of those with autism.
The concert featuring 9 different performers along with the Montclair State University Symphony Orchestra was under the direction of Tim Janis. Tenor trio Forte was on hand, along with YouTube sensation Nick Pitera, singer/songwriter Amy Petty, piano pop artist Cami Bradley and several others.
The Sleepy Men are Jonny Mizzone on banjo with his brother Tommy on guitar, brother Robbie on fiddle, and Cory Piatt on mandolin and Blake Pitney on bass. All five are under 21, with Jonny bringing up the rear at just 11 years old.
The boys only got to play three songs on the show (Whitewater, Jonny’s Tune, Farthest Horizon), but all of them were psyched for the chance to share the stage with so many other young artists in pop, folk and classical music.
World of Bluegrass each year is full of surprises. Usually they’re mostly positive, though you do occasionally hear of a stolen instrument or a piece of lost luggage among the regular attendees.
This year the surprises we encountered were all good, primarily the talented young pickers we came across, jamming in every nook and cranny of the host hotels. Where we stayed at the Marriott, the corridors were full of nighttime picking, and the hotel bar had put up a small stage where anyone could hop up and play a set. There we saw the latest iteration of Sleepy Man Banjo Boys, who played a blistering version of Don Stover’s Rockwood Deer Chase. It’s not likely that any of those boys were born when Don passed in 1996, but there his music was, preserved in their youthful imaginations.
Another bunch we ran into several time was The Meyers. I first saw this Missouri family band at SPBGMA earlier this year, where they took first place in the Band Championship. The group consists of four siblings: John on banjo, David on guitar, Mary on mandolin, and Jimmy on bass. John and David sing lead, with all four taking their turns with harmonies.
They generated quite a buzz throughout the week, and youngest brother Jimmy played the Awards Show as part of the Youth Bluegrass All Stars.
Here are a couple of videos from IBMA week. This first has them playing on the main stage in the convention center lobby with Wyatt Harmon on bass and Gaven Largent on reso-guitar. Jimmy was off doing an All Stars show.
And here they are in a hallway jam with Largent on reso again and Cory Piatt on second mandolin.
Keep an eye out for this bunch. They will be making quite a noise in bluegrass this next few years.
