Mark Fain

I hasten to say, this is not where Bryan is most of the time or where even he would tell you he's most musical and in his element, but it was exciting.

Now, Bryan tells us how he got that job by way of Kentucky Thunder bass player Mark Fain.

It's interesting.

Our- we had a neighbor moved in just behind our house that I grew up in, uh, named Anthony Burger, who was a well-known piano player in this sorta world of gospel, Southern gospel, country gospel music.

And there, that's where I got to meet some other people that I would eventually work more with, uh, a certain singer that was g- uh, starting to launch kind of a solo career named Karen Peck.

And so it was a great place for me to learn, a great place for me to initially plug in.

But all that, the long way to say, it was through doing shows with Karen Peck that I met Mark Fain.

He moved to Nashville and, and got the job with Ricky in early 1995, and the person that I replaced left in, uh, kind of summer of '95.

You learn this in the music business too as far as just networks and connections and things like that.

I met Mark Fain, wonderful bass player, literally one of the first trips out with this Karen Peck artist and her band.

Mark Fain would eventually get the job with Ricky Skaggs and so over a few years leaving Karen Peck's outfit and moving to Nashville, Mark was already with Skaggs and in the summer of 1995, that connection with Mark was valuable in that he, the position with Ricky opened up and Mark recommended me.

And so that connected me with Ricky and that sort of got a lot of things going as far as in Nashville and you know part of what we're talking about today you know me kind of coming onto the bluegrass scene and making records and being on stage with a lot of different people over the last 25 years plus and so that's ranged from after Ricky you know individual kind of little runs in time with Jerry Douglas or Tim O'Brien and various sort of connections between those folks, like the Hot Rise Band for about 20 years, and then through the connection with Jerry and Sam Bush and Bela Fleck, various things that any one of those folks have done, including but not limited to the Telluride House Band for 20-some years, and various tours with Bela over the years, and lots of sessions with Sam and Jerry.

And also kind of within that, pursuing, you know, probably around 10 years ago, sort of my own thing, if you will, I sort of realized that I'd done a lot of playing and recording with other people and recorded most of their music.