Compact Recording Systems 

This page is meant for those of you who may be interested in a long-winded dissertation of my music life. Since this kind of prose might be boring to many of you, I have thankfully included the escape button here. For those of you who are still with me, welcome, and read on.

While back in junior high school, I went to a square dance for the first time ever. It was at a church camp and just turning 13, I was in the right stage of life, if you know what I mean. There was a beautiful girl that I admired from afar, and I was totally mesmerized with this, my first infatuation. She knew all the old time fiddle tunes and how to square dance amazingly well. On the other hand, I was totally lost. I decided right then that I would learn at least the names of these tunes. Then I could carry on a somewhat intelligent conversation with this fascinating creature.

At home I listened to WWVA radio in Wheeling, West Virginia to try to learn more about fiddle music and square dancing. At that time there were late night segmented programs on WWVA, and advertisers bought chunks of airtime to promote their wares. Luckily, I found a segment of recorded fiddle tunes for sale. The announcer was Lee Sutton, who was the host right before Lee Moore, the "coffee drinkin' nighthawk." Several standard fiddle tunes were included such as Soldiers Joy, Sally Ann, 8th of January, and Gray Eagle. I loved listening to them, so I turned the radio on early every night to make sure I wouldn't miss them. Right before the fiddle segment was the Jimmy Martin segment, and Lee Sutton would play tunes from Jimmy's Good n' Country album. A young banjo player, JD Crowe, fascinated me. It was the first time I ever heard the 5-string banjo. I set out immediately to try to duplicate the sound I was hearing by retuning my Dad's ukulele. I kept hearing that sound of the suspended seventh note when JD Crowe would play a V chord. How was he doing that? Was that the fifth string?

I felt sort of weird liking this kind of music, because it wasn't, shall we say, cool. Not many of my fellow students in junior high approved, so I quickly became a closet country music fan. Then one day a miraculous thing happened. The science teacher, Mr. Desario, came in on Friday afternoon to run a film that had absolutely nothing to do with science entitled, Bay at the Moon. It was a hunting movie about hunting dogs and hunters running through the woods chasing raccoons. Mr. Desario said, "Now class, I know this movie has little to do with the subject of Science, but I saw this movie last night, and I want you to listen to the music." When he ran the film, I was surprised to hear banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, while we all sat there watching these hunting dogs running, baying, and treeing raccoons and possums. All of the kids seemed to really like the music so I felt a bit of a reprieve. But more than that I loved the solitude of the hollows and woods in the film so I found myself later going down to Alikana Creek. Alone there, I could imagine the music as I looked out onto this peaceful Appalachian Ohio landscape.

I finally convinced Dad to take me to Pittsburgh to buy a 5-string banjo. It was an old open back that cost around $40. I taught myself to play from listening to records and slowing them down half speed. I bought a Flatt and Scruggs music book from a store that showed the notes, but no tablature. I got my sister to play the tunes for me on the piano so I could learn them. About two years later, I saw Flatt and Scruggs, who appeared live in Pittsburgh, and I asked Earl how he played the instrumental, Rubin. To my surprise, he told me that I had to retune the banjo to the key of D. I didn't know there were other tunings for the banjo, so I had my work cut out for me. Earl was eating an ice cream cone while wandering around Kennywood Park between sets. I didn't want to take up too much of his time since Mrs. Scruggs, seemed to be bit perturbed that a fan would approach him with questions during their private time. I did get him to sign my book, however.

I spent many years attending the WWVA Jamboree each Saturday night. The acts were great. Back then, local talent and bluegrass acts made up the program, and the program was beamed northeast with 50,000 Watts of power on directional antennas all the way up into Canada. This coverage made for an audience of thousands. Some of the acts that I saw and I talked to were Jimmy Martin, The Osborne Brothers, Hylo Brown and the Timberliners, Jim Greer and the Mac-o-Chee Valley Folks, Mac Wiseman, and a great banjo player, Walter Hensley. He had impeccable timing. Walter was a very progressive player for his time with a saxophone player in his band. It worked musically, even though it was an odd instrument for a country band. But like a fiddle, you can get a lot of emotion out of a sax that is played right.

I went to Linsly, the same high school in Wheeling that Tim O'Brien attended. A major influence on my music training and also Tim's was Douglas Haigwood, the music director there. He taught the proper principles of music training of both voice and instruments. I cannot say enough about the influence that he had on my life. Years later, however, I don't think he really approved of my vocation as guitarist for the Don Ho Show. He sent me a thank you card for a donation that I had made to the school. In it, he said congratulations on your chosen "profession", in quotes like that.

In the 60's I started playing in different bands. The first one was called The Countrymen, which was primarily a folk music band. I wrote my first banjo instrumental with this group entitled Coal Tipple Twist! We were a very gutsy band with our unbridled youthful optimism. One night we decided to go down unannounced to the local radio station to see whether the DJ, who we did not know, would put us on the air. Well, for some reason, he did. We came back to make appearances every week for three months. While in college, I was in a band called The Other Half. In this ensemble, I also learned to play acoustic bass. It was also the first time that I would be called upon to play and sing at the same time. To me, that was a difficult task to learn. We played in different theater productions and went on the road to Boston and Washington DC with the college's reader's theater group. The college also produced an album of us that was recorded in a new wing of a classroom. Acoustically, it was awful with all the echo of the new cement walls. People seemed to like that album though, and I think that it can still be obtained via mail order. The Other Half capped its successful career with a stint at the Bel-Aire Supper Club in Green Lake, Wisconsin playing six nights a week with a weekly radio show. This was the summer of 1969, and at least I know where I was when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

With some intervening groups in between, such as The Mid-Pacific Bluegrass Boys, Manoa Valley Bluegrass and Midstream, the next big step in my career was playing the Don Ho Show in Hawaii. I had been a commercial pilot in Hawaii from 1970-75 just to drop out of music for a while. I was at a bluegrass jam session when Randy McKinnin, banjo player with the Don Ho Show asked me if I would mind sitting in for him as an alternate musician from time to time. I told him yes, and he invited me to the show one evening in Waikiki. Don wanted a comparison between us so upon introducing me, he set up two chairs on opposite sides of the stage with a complete 17 piece orchestra behind us: me on one side, Randy on the other. Talk about scared. I think we played, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Dueling Banjos. Don liked my timing, and so I got the job. And thank you, JD Crowe. Randy quit the show entirely about four weeks later, so Don asked me if I would like a permanent position playing banjo and guitar in the orchestra, with a featured cameo set. The special on stage appearances were with Joe Dawn, a singer from Japan who joined the show when I worked there. I recorded a few albums with Don and also appeared on his daily The Don Ho TV Show on ABC. If you fly on United Airlines to Hawaii, you can hear me playing acoustic guitar and Dobro^TM on E Kuu O Home O Kahalu, on the Hawaiian music audio channel.

I left Hawaii in 1980 with five years of service with the Don Ho Show moving to California to try to get a job playing bluegrass, if possible. I wanted to get to know the local jammers and pickers, so I went to the Golden West Bluegrass Festival in Norco. Jimmy Martin was playing there and I was excited to see the show. I found a group of jammers and I decided to join them. It was the band, Bluegrass West. They asked me to join their band to play some upcoming shows, and I agreed. Later in the afternoon, Jimmy Martin came over to our jam with a mandolin and joined us. I didn't know that he played mandolin, but he sang a lot of his songs with us, and he was a very solid mandolin player. That was a great experience. Later that evening, he told me that I had good timing. I appreciated the comment a lot since it seemed that my life had come full circle from my junior high-school days and the movie, Bay at the Moon. In the evening, I asked Jimmy if he could keep me in mind for a job, should one develop. He gave me a card out of his wallet and I wrote my name and number down. I thanked him and left the park.

Months passed by, and I had finally found a job at RTS Systems in Burbank. It was a good job with benefits, and I was able to purchase a home in Monrovia, California. A week before I was to move in, there was a call from my mother-in-law's house from a "Mr. Jimmy Martin". I knew what the call was in regard to, but the arrow of time had now moved too far forward for me to respond to that path, but I will always wonder what would have happened to my life if I had accepted the position. A lot has been said about Jimmy Martin over the years, but one thing I can say is that he kept his word to call me, and I respect him. I can also say very honestly say that I would not be playing bluegrass music today if it weren't for him. I owe him a lot.

Now that I am into producing, I am very excited about one undiscovered talent whose name is Sheri Lee. Her CD, More Than Words..., can be purchased from us or from Sheri. If you are an artist and like the sound and graphics that we were able to achieve with this CD, please contact me at Compact Recording Systems at 626-287-3633 for a quotation for your next project.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all of the artists that I have met and listened to in my career. They have been directly responsible for my interest and pursuance of bluegrass music. To a large extent, they have also been very influential in the development of my playing style. Bluegrass is a very pure art form, and I am proud to be a part of it!

Dave Richardson, Updated October 26, 2007