Biography
Psychograss stood among the most wide-ranging ensembles ever to emerge in American string music. Although grounded in the updated textures of present-day bluegrass, the group wove in threads of folk, jazz, classical composition, Latin-American rhythms, and pop material.
Darol Anger on fiddle and Mike Marshall on mandolin assembled this supergroup of leading acoustic players. Both had previously belonged to the forward-thinking David Grisman Quintet before pursuing projects as a duo and as participants in the chamber-folk ensemble Montreux alongside pianist Barbara Higbie and bassist Michael Manring. Anger later established the Turtle Island String Band, while Marshall created the Modern Mandolin Quartet.
To complete the lineup, Anger and Marshall brought in string bassist Todd Phillips, who had helped found the Grisman Quintet as well as Tony Rice’s Bluegrass Album Band and had also played with Montreux, plus Joe Craven, then the percussionist with the Grisman Quintet. Together they cut the band’s self-titled debut album in 1993. Alongside original instrumentals composed by Anger and Marshall, the record featured a folk-pop treatment of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” sung by Tim O’Brien and the newgrass piece “Flanders Rock” by Tony Trischka, who contributed five-string banjo.
Anger and Marshall reconvened for a second Psychograss release, Like Minds, issued in 1996 after adding Trischka and flatpicking guitar virtuoso David Grier. Every member supplied an original composition, resulting in an album of new material except for one bluegrass-flavored reading of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun.”
Darol Anger on fiddle and Mike Marshall on mandolin assembled this supergroup of leading acoustic players. Both had previously belonged to the forward-thinking David Grisman Quintet before pursuing projects as a duo and as participants in the chamber-folk ensemble Montreux alongside pianist Barbara Higbie and bassist Michael Manring. Anger later established the Turtle Island String Band, while Marshall created the Modern Mandolin Quartet.
To complete the lineup, Anger and Marshall brought in string bassist Todd Phillips, who had helped found the Grisman Quintet as well as Tony Rice’s Bluegrass Album Band and had also played with Montreux, plus Joe Craven, then the percussionist with the Grisman Quintet. Together they cut the band’s self-titled debut album in 1993. Alongside original instrumentals composed by Anger and Marshall, the record featured a folk-pop treatment of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” sung by Tim O’Brien and the newgrass piece “Flanders Rock” by Tony Trischka, who contributed five-string banjo.
Anger and Marshall reconvened for a second Psychograss release, Like Minds, issued in 1996 after adding Trischka and flatpicking guitar virtuoso David Grier. Every member supplied an original composition, resulting in an album of new material except for one bluegrass-flavored reading of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun.”
Albums
