Featuring:
Brent Kittrell- bass
Dave “Fiddle Brithces” Langston- violin, vocals
Marc Maynard- banjo, vocals
Lee Kotick- guitar, vocals
Fred “Butch” Burns- guitar, mandolin, vocals

Save the date, outloud will premiere on 4FSU (Comcast 4) Monday, March 31st at 9:00 pm ET.

If you close your eyes and listen to this episode, it might sound like a 1950s bluegrass radio show.  The Boy$ like to play the old style, “rough edged” bluegrass; and Fred “Butch” Burns (mandolin/guitar/vocals) keeps an audience engaged with his between-song banter. The Bottom Dollar Boy$ lay omage to Bill Monroe bluegrass and traditional Appalachian music. They remain authentic in both content and presentation in an age where bluegrass is finding newfound commercial viability that sees the genre crossing over to pop, jazz, and jam band audiences.

Butch is the only member left from when he started the band in 1975.  In the thirty plus years since, he’s played with almost everyone who plays bluegrass in the Tallahassee area.  His current lineup has been together for about a year and a half, with some members having tenures of a couple of decades, others having more recently joined.  It must have been that playing with this revolving cast of characters over the years gave him the flexibility to keep this episode of outloud from derailing when personnel issues threatenned. 

As you may know, outloud deals with local talent.  We have many gifted musicians in the area, but most of them are not career musicians.  This means they have day jobs, and day jobs can often interfere with the passions in our lives.  The first victim of this reality was guitarist Lee Kotick, who had to work the day of the performance.  Luckily, he was able to come to the rehearsal, and there is a complete song with the full lineup in this episode.  On the performance night, Butch switched from mandolin to guitar to compensate.  The next victim of the dreaded day job was banjo player Marc Maynard, who was held up at work (out in Gadsden county, no less) and didn’t make it until halfway through the alotted studio time.  In the meantime, Butch performed some songs from his side project - ScrapIron Songsmith.

ScrapIron is often a solo project, occassionally a duo.  This outlet allows Butch to slow it down and play some of his original “old country” songs.  He and fiddle player Dave “Fiddle Britches” Langston and bass player Brent Kittrell put on a good show until Marc arrived, and the resulting episode showcases a few different lineups spanning the best of traditional American acoustic music.

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