Epilogue: A Tribute to John Duffey

The words ‘all-star line-up’ barely hint at the abundance of superlative musicianship captured on this sparkling tribute to John Duffey (1934-1996), a mandolin virtuoso and founding member of two highly influential bluegrass bands, The Country Gentlemen and The Seldom Scene. In the late 1950s, Duffey, the son of a Metropolitan Opera singer, earned widespread acclaim for his wide-ranging tenor voice, instrumental prowess and humorously engaging onstage manner. By mixing non-traditional material, such as Bob Dylan songs, with traditional bluegrass repertoire and drawing upon stylistic elements from jazz and rock, Duffey exerted an enormous impact on the evolution of modern bluegrass. To produce Epilogue: A Tribute to John Duffey, Akira Otsuka and Ronnie Freeland have spent 15 years painstakingly assembling contributions from 53 musicians including David Grisman, Nils Lofgren, Béla Fleck, John Cowan, Sam Bush, Bruce Molsky, Tim O'Brien, and Amanda and Kenny Smith. Standouts among the album's treasure trove are ‘Sunrise’ featuring Fleck and Bush; ‘Going to the Races’, on which James King evokes Duffey's distinctively mellifluous singing style; and Bill Emerson's interpretation of ‘If I Were a Carpenter’, which Duffey recorded with the Seldom Scene on their famed 1975 release, Live at the Cellar Door.