Chris Thile
A mandolin virtuoso and songwriter since the age of 5, at 12 he won the prestigious national mandolin championship in Winfield, Kansas. That year he began recording his first solo album, with songs mostly of his own composition, which was later named the #1 bluegrass album of 1994 by The Chicago Tribue. Today, alongside his solo work, he is a founding member of the Grammy award-winning nugrass band Nickel Creek, which is mentored and produced by one of the most well-known names in Nashville, Alison Krauss.
LINK [Nickel Creek]
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Regarded as one of the best mandolin players in the world, he paired with fellow virtuoso Mike Marshall in 2003 to create the all-mandolin acoustic album, Into The Cauldron, featuring flourishing arrangements of everything from Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple From The Apple”, to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to traditional world, folk, and bluegrass melodies. I especially like “Desvairada” and “The Saga Of Harrison Crabfeathers”.
AUDIO[Chris Thile & Mike Marshall - Desvairada]
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In one of his early instructional videos, I watched a young Chris Thile outline the finer points of picking technique and hand position, concluding the session with a sincere performance of his original piece, “Raining At Sunset”, that laid any doubts to his brilliance aside. Here’s a clip from that video, as well as a later, more produced version of the composition:
VIDEO [Chris Thile - instructional video clip] AUDIO[Chris Thile - Raining At Sunset]
His latest album, Deceiver, was released a year ago and features Thile singing and playing a range of instruments including guitar and piano. Though he has been singing with Nickel Creek for quite a while, some reviews are skeptical as to his success with broadened instrumentation. This aside, his desire to branch out is admirable, and listeners are rewarded with two new mandolin compositions – one of which, “Jessamyr’s Reel”, can be heard here.
AUDIO[Chris Thile - Jessamyr’s Reel]
LINK [interview with Thile and Deceiver review] (PopMatters)
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