THE GRASS IS ALWAYS BLUER
SIX BLAZING BLUEGRASS GUITARISTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ( BESIDES BILLY STRINGS AND MOLLY TUTTLE! )
BY ALISON RICHTER
Trey Hensley [left] and Rob Ickes
PHOTO BY JEFF FASANO
FROM THE ICONIC roots planted by Bill Monroe to innovators like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, bluegrass continues to thrive. The traditions expand, but they never stray far from their foundations. The genre’s contemporary players are as likely to cite Ralph Stanley as they are Eddie Van Halen among their influences. Selecting only six guitarists to profile was a challenge for GW’s editorial team. Search YouTube to watch these guitarists shine, and each will lead you to more, and more, and more...
BRAD DAVIS
Who He Is: Solo artist, session musician, songwriter, producer, instructor and one of Guitar World’s “Greatest Texas Guitarists of All Time” [Holiday 2022 issue]. Nicknamed “The Shredder” and recognized for his “double-down-up” technique (a form of economy picking whereby you perform a mini downstroke sweep across two adjacent strings, followed by an upstroke), his credits range from Marty Stuart to David Lee Roth. Davis’ new trio, with bassist Craig Langford and drummer Stephen Ritter, has been described as “Joe Satriani and Tommy Emmanuel meet Billy Strings.”
What He Does: “My flat-picking family brothers did not accept my playing style. Steve Kaufman spoke against it because he felt I was attempting to replace traditional down-up-down. Joe Carr [Country Gazette], my first real bluegrass teacher, said, ‘What are you doing? Don’t do that. That’s weird!’ I also asked my ’grass guitar hero, Tony Rice, if he used a double-downup pattern in a repetitive sequence. He said, ‘I use down-down-up-up once in a while, but never in a repetitive sequence.’
“After studying my heroes Rice, [Clarence] White, [Norman] Blake and [Dan] Crary, and even my colleagues [Bryan] Sutton, [Colby] Kilby, [David] Grier and others, I realized I was on an island with this technique. A few years later, Kaufman’s camp attendees requested me to be [part of the] guitar faculty at [Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp], and Joe Carr hired me to give a double-down-up clinic at Levelland Music College in Levelland, Texas.”
How He Does It: “My technique was influenced by metal/rock, for sure. I stumbled onto my new way of picking with my right hand after hearing Eddie Van Halen’s ripping guitar on ‘Hot for Teacher.’ I took my flat pick and worked hard to mimic his style. I was shocked when I saw him solo for the first time on a TV special and realized he was tapping with both hands and not using a flat pick. I also realized my technique was similar to a drummer’s paradiddle.