A few years ago I began covering the new directions of Bluegrass influenced bands (some call it Jamgrass) I just call it good music. To dispute the the roads that Leftover Salmon has paved for today’s lineups would be absurd.

I cover 200 festivals yearly, and this band is indeed part of MANY of those lineups all over the country. This book chronicles the journey of  a merge with two bands in 1989 called the Salmon Heads and members of the Left Hand String Band played a one night stand.

Although the lineup has changed many many times the “Big Three” have remained until Mr. mark Vann passed away in 2002. However through the years Mr. Drew Emmitt and Mr. Vince Herman have been up front for these thirty years.

From 2004-2007 the band remained off duty and reunited to play the High Sierra Music Festival in California ( we cover that one). 2008 and 2009 marked a FEW performances, but in 2012 they released a landmark comeback album called Aquatic Hitchhiker.

Despite their on and off past, they certainly deserve many accolades and praise for their influence and assistance in ushering in the growth of the Jamgrass movement.

Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival!
New Book By Author Tim Newby Due Out February 2019 on Rowman & Littlefield

“History is made by those who write it, not the musicians who can’t remember it, Tim Newby knows our history and now it’s up to him to teach us what happened!” –Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon)

“Tim Newby has somehow managed to capture the unique combination of personalities that is Leftover Salmon; a feat that I would have thought fairly impossible. As unique as their music, Tim weaves his story through the sensibilities of the individual players which creates a wonderful kaleidoscope resulting in the definitive biography of a band that is still constantly changing and growing into their 4th decade.”
–Steve Berlin (Los Lobos)
DENVER, CO — Few bands stick around for thirty years. Even fewer bands leave a legacy during that time that marks them as a truly special, once-in-lifetime type band. And no band has done all that and had as much fun as Leftover Salmon. Since their earliest days as a forward thinking, progressive bluegrass band who had the guts to add drums to the mix and who was unafraid to stir in any number of highly combustible styles into their ever evolving sound, to their role as a pioneer of the modern jamband scene, to their current status as elder-statesmen of the scene who cast a huge influential shadow over every festival they play, Leftover Salmon has been a crucial link in keeping alive the traditional music of the past while at the same time pushing that sound forward with their own weirdly, unique style.

As Leftover Salmon nears their 30th year, their inspiring story is set to be told in a brand new book, Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival! that will be released February 2019 by Rowman & Littlefield. In this book, critically acclaimed author of Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin’ Sound & It’s Legacy, Tim Newby presents an intimate portrait of Leftover Salmon through the personal recollections of its band members, family, friends, former band-mates, managers, and the countless musicians they have influenced. Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival! is a thorough guide covering a thirty-year journey of a truly remarkable band. It is a tale of friendships and losses, musical discoveries and Wild West adventures, and the brethren they surround themselves with who fortify Salmon’s unique voice. Their story is one of tragedy and rebirth, of unimaginable highs and crushing lows, of friendships, of music, but most importantly it is the story of a special band and those that have lived through it all to create, inspire, and have everlasting fun.

Leftover Salmon. Photo by Bob Carmichael

Leftover Salmon. Photo by Bob Carmichael
Heading into their fourth decade Leftover Salmon is showing no signs of slowing down as they are coming off the release of their most recent album, Something Higher (released in 2018), which has been universally hailed as one of the band’s finest releases. Something Higher shows how even upon preparing to enter their fourth decade Leftover Salmon is proving it possible to recreate themselves without changing who they are. The band now features a line-up that has been together longer than any other in Salmon history and is one of the strongest the legendary band has ever assembled. Built around the core of founding members Drew Emmitt and Vince Herman, the band is now powered by banjo-wiz Andy Thorn, and driven by the steady rhythm section of bassist Greg Garrison, drummer Alwyn Robinson, and keyboardist Erik Deutsch.

The new line-up is continuing the long, storied history of Salmon which found them first emerging from the progressive bluegrass world and coming of age as one the original jam bands, before rising to become architects of what has become known as Jamgrass and helping to create a landscape where bands schooled in the traditional rules of bluegrass can break free of those bonds through nontraditional instrumentation and an innate ability to push songs in new psychedelic directions live.
Salmon is a band who, over their thirty-year career, has never stood still; they are constantly changing, evolving, and inspiring. If someone wanted to understand what Americana music is they could do no better than to go to a Leftover Salmon show, where they effortlessly glide from a bluegrass number born on the front porch, to the down-and-dirty Cajun swamps with a stop on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, to the hallowed halls of the Ryman in Nashville, before firing one up in the mountains of Colorado.

Leftover Salmon On Tour:

2018
Thanksgiving Run- featuring pre/post shows and a Day of Giving at Moe’s BBQ Englewood
11/23 Fri – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO w/ Gasoline Lollipops
11/24 Sat – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO w/ Tenth Mountain Division

12/7-11 Fri-Tues – Strings & Sol – Puerto Morelos, Mexico

New Years Run
12/28 Fri – Crystal Bay Club Casino – Crystal Bay, NV
12/29 Sat – Sierra Nevada Brewing Co – Chico, CA
12/30 Sun – Terrapin Crossroads – San Rafael, CA
12/31 Mon – Terrapin Crossroads – San Rafael, CA

2019
1/15-20 Tue-Mon – Jam Cruise – Miami, FL
1/31 Thu – Soreng Theatre – Eugene, OR*
2/1 Fri – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR*
2/2 Sat – The Triple Door – Seattle, WA (2 shows)*
2/14 Thu – Wheeler Opera House – Aspen, CO*
2/15 Fri – Vilar Performing Arts Center – Beaver Creek, CO*
2/16 Sat – Washington’s – Fort Collins, CO*
2/21 Thu – The Steifel Theatre for the Performing Arts – Salina, KS*
2/22 Fri – Sheldon Concert Hall – St. Louis, MO*
2/23 Sat – North Shore Center for the Performing Arts – Skokie, IL*
2/24 Sun – Turner Hall Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI*
2/26 Tue – Woodward Theatre – Owensboro, KY*
2/27 Wed – Minglewood Hall – Memphis, TN*
2/28 Thu – City Winery – Atlanta, GA (2 shows)*
3/1 Fri – The Caverns – Pelham, TN*
3/2 Sat – Dave Finkelman Auditorium – Middletown, OH*
3/14-16 Thur-Sat – Alyeska Resort – Girdwood, AK
3/22-24 Fri-Sun – Boogie at the Broadmoor – Colorado Springs, CO
3/29-31 Fri-Sun – WinterWonderGrass – Tahoe, CA
4/13-14 Sat-Sun – Bender Jamboree – Las Vegas, NV
4/26 Fri – Stoughton Opera House – Stoughton, WI*
4/27 Sat – Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts – Sheboygan, WI*
4/28 Sun – Sheldon Theatre – Red Wing, MN*
RSS
Follow by Email
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram