Welcome to Part 3 of our Leftover Salmon: Celebrating 20 Years feature. JamBase has been working with the Salmon guys, as well as artists they’ve influenced and been influenced by, to bring fans this intimate look at one of the most important bands to grow out of the jam scene.

Part 1 of our story featured interviews with Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt and a bunch of contemporaries like Yonder Mountain String Band‘s Ben Kaufmann and Little Feat‘s Paul Barrere, as we broke it down, telling the Salmon tale from the very beginning. Part 1 also included the first set of songs from our free double album giveaway. You can read the full history of Leftover Salmon in Part 1 here, and you can download the first set of songs from the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler here.

Part 2 of our feature revolved around interviews with John Bell, Jeff Austin, John Cowan and Pete Sears, and can be read in full here. Part 2 also came with the second batch of songs from the album giveaway, which you can download here, and if you go to the last page of the feature you will find complete track list info.

For Part 3 we’re offering the next six songs from the double live album, which you can download here. We also caught up with Sam Bush, Cracker‘s David Lowery, and Ronnie McCoury to lend some more insight into what Salmon means to the scene.

Sam Bush

JamBase: On February 20, 2003 at The Fox in Boulder, you sat in with the band on “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow.” We are featuring this song in our live album giveaway and wondered if you have any memories of this night, perhaps even this song?

Drew Emmitt, Sam Bush, Vince Herman – Leftover Salmon

Sam Bush: I learned that tune originally from The Country Gentlemen when I was 16 years old, so I’d always played the mandolin on it. But I find, one, when you have such a great player as Drew Emmitt playing mandolin, why would I need to play the mandolin? And two, they don’t have a fiddler in the band, so I would rather play fiddle with Salmon. I don’t know how he does it, but Drew can play faster than maybe anyone I’ve ever played with. Me, with a fiddle bow, it’s all I can seem to do to just hang on with the guys. That’s one thing I love about Salmon: they bring the energy to the table that not many bands can, so basically, all I gotta do is hang on. They’ve already set the groove and it’s my job just to keep up with ‘em.

JamBase: There are a lot of instances when you’ve sat in with Salmon over the years. What else comes to mind?

Sam Bush: I can remember one great time, New Year’s Eve 1999 going into Y2K. We were staying in downtown Denver, and back then, there was the Y2K scare of not knowing what was going to go wrong with the country, the electronic grids and what have you, and I remember many storefronts downtown having plywood over the windows! It was a little odd. So, we get to the Salmon gig and everything’s back and fun again, and Salmon has a costume for everyone to wear, and I remember having a great time jamming with the guys that night; it was a truly wonderful experience. And we did sort of a musical parade through the audience, so to speak, in our costumes, and we were about two-thirds of the way through the audience and all of a sudden something smacked me in the forehead so hard that I actually saw colors, and it was a big ice cube that someone had thrown! It hit me right in the forehead, ended up making an egg on my head. And I thought, “Okay, I’m going to leave the audience procession to the young folks from now on.”

I remember another time as well. We were all in Boulder to pay tribute to Mark Vann by getting to sit in with Salmon, and I had been to see Mark earlier in the hospital that day down in Denver. As a cancer survivor, I always want to try to see my brothers that are going through it. I really loved Mark a lot, and he obviously, of course, was a driving force in that band. Basically, I felt like Mark brought the work ethic to the band. He was a true professional.

JamBase: Thinking about Leftover Salmon’s 20 year history, how do you feel they have most significantly influenced the music world?

Mark Vann – Leftover Salmon

Sam Bush: Well, you can look down a ladder of progression in music, and see where some bands may have influenced others. Coming from the band New Grass Revival for 18 years, I know the bands that we were influenced by, bands like The Osborne Brothers, Jim & Jesse, The Country Gentlemen and The Dillards, bands that had already strayed away from bluegrass. Even though I grew up loving The Stanley Brothers and Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs, we tended to be more influenced by the more progressive-style bluegrass bands. So there already was progressive bluegrass before we came along. And then bands like us, Breakfast Special from the Northeast, the New Deal String Band from North Carolina, we came along – we being NGR – and then as the years roll by, then we influenced bands like Leftover Salmon and others.

So, NGR is long broke up, Salmon is going strong, and I think you can see where they influenced a lot of people who wanted to play music, especially musicians interested in acoustic instruments. I would venture to say Salmon did a lot, maybe more than anyone else for a period of years, to influence young people; by young I mean kids in their teens, to want to play bluegrass-style instruments. So you can see a band like Salmon that can do reggae and rock & roll but also play the fast and furious jamgrass and newgrass, that they were very influential for a lot of young musicians that got interested in mandolins, banjos, and acoustic guitar from listening to Leftover Salmon. In that way I believe they were very influential for the furtherance of acoustic music and progressive-style bluegrass.

JamBase: Obviously, you and NGR were a huge influence on Salmon. In what ways have they influenced you or your music?

Sam Bush: I think they’ve influenced me in that just playing with them and feeling the energy, helps me remember that one of the things I love about music is the onstage energy and the communication with the audience. So, in that way, they’ve influenced me and encouraged me to keep playing and keep the energy cycle going and the circle of communication with the audience.

Continue reading for interviews with David Lowery and Ronnie McCoury…

Ronnie McCoury – Del McCoury Band & The Travelin’ McCourys

JamBase: You’ve collaborated with Leftover Salmon many times over the years. Can you share some memories?

Ronnie McCoury & Drew Emmitt

Ronnie McCoury: It’s funny, last night the Emmitt-Nershi Band came to Nashville and I played a gig and they came to the show and I jammed with Drew last night! We’re just really good friends.

I don’t know exactly the first time that I played [with them], probably some place like Telluride. But the first time we did a co-bill would’ve been at a place called The NorVa in Norfolk, Virginia. I’m really bad with the timeline here, but I’m thinking it was about 2001. We got up and played some stuff together, basically the two bands, my dad’s [Del McCoury] band and their [Leftover Salmon] band. And from that, it led to booking a string of shows and doing a tour called “Under The Influence.” Basically, it was kind of a play on “under the influence of my dad” a little bit. You know what I mean? And we went out for about a month, bouncing around the country together, and just had a great time.

And I’ll tell you what, besides the collaborating and the singing and all that stuff, one thing that we got from that is that was the first time that we all really plugged in. It was kind of funny, “under the influence,” it turned us into that, too. And my dad, too. I’ve been playing with dad since 1981, and that was the first time that I remembered him getting a guitar plugged in. There wasn’t any kind of distortion, it was still acoustic, but still…Coming from our world, all acoustic, that was a big deal.

JamBase: Was that Salmon’s idea, or just a spontaneous thing?

Ronnie McCoury: Well, they were playing all plugged in, and we were playing like we do normally with two or three mics. We play with microphones that pick up from all directions called omnidirectional, that’s how we play, and it picks up from two or three feet. So, we were out with those guys and we couldn’t get onstage and do the same thing. We actually tried to, the first night or two, playing around our mic, and you just can’t compete. The crowd can’t hear you; you can’t hear yourself. So, one night, Vince just gave Dad a guitar and plugged it in. And I knew by that time, we figured we’d better try and get some pickups at least and see what we can do because I knew we were going to be doing stuff together in the show, not like just jumping up and playing at a festival or whatever. So we kinda had it arranged that we would do that, but I wasn’t sure what my dad was going to do. Well, he took that guitar from Vince, strummed across it and heard that volume and it was good! And that really is the beginning of us doing that.

JamBase: Was it like Dylan at Newport? Was there any kind of resistance among the traditional bluegrass crowd, or was it a natural absorption into the modern idea?

Del McCoury Band by Dave Vann

Ronnie McCoury: Exactly what you said. I couldn’t have put it any better. Sometimes you don’t hear bad news or if somebody doesn’t like it, but I never heard anything. My dad is someone who is very open-minded and goes with the flow, as opposed to a lot of guys who would never even do that. To me, that was a turning point for us in the band, knowing that we could do that if we needed to do it.

So, we had some really good times, and on some nights off we’d just go hang out and really bonded with all the guys [in Salmon]. I can’t say enough about the friendship we have. And we did some recording, The Nashville Sessions [Hollywood Records, 1999], with them, and dad sang with Drew on a song called “Midnight Blues.” A really good recording, I think, really a classic.

JamBase: Looking back on the past 20 years, what do you think that Salmon has brought to the music world in general?

Ronnie McCoury: There have been bands somewhat like that, say New Grass Revival, which is their roots. But what they did is they took it another step and really blended even more different music together. There was really nothing else like it, and there still isn’t. I don’t think there’s any other band that puts that combination together quite like that. Really, with the keyboards and the different sounds with the bluegrass, the blending of the music, it’s something that I hadn’t heard before and haven’t heard since.

Continue reading for the David Lowery interview…

David Lowery – Cracker

JamBase: Do you remember how you first came into contact with Leftover Salmon?

David Lowery

David Lowery: I can’t remember what festival it was, but there were a couple festivals we played one summer where we kept running into them, and I just liked them. I just thought they played well, had good chemistry, there were just a lot of cool things about [their music]. And mainly Vince [Herman, Leftover Salmon], Johnny [Hickman, Cracker] and I just ended up palling around at these festivals. I don’t remember exactly but somehow, we ended up onstage together and we played a couple Cracker songs, and it was a blast. And what it led to was that they were coming through town and I played with them again just as a guest musician, and they were going to be coming back through town about three weeks later, and I said, “Hey, why don’t you guys just come into my studio when there’s a couple days off in your schedule, and we’ll just see what we can record?” So as it ended up, the simplest thing to do was for us to record essentially a lot of songs that me and Johnny Hickman had written.

JamBase: The O Cracker, Where Art Thou? album?

David Lowery: Yeah. So basically, over the course of a summer and then a year, we ended up hanging out together a lot and doing some jamming, but the real connection between the bands was when we made this record. And we didn’t really have a plan or anything like that; that’s why we just did a bunch of Cracker songs in a different vein with them. But the cool thing about it was the whole recording session, once the crew and my engineer at the studio got everything set up, it really just became more like a bacchanalian feast. It became more about drinking, smoking cigars, or whatever else. There was a pretty nice restaurant across the street from my studio that they completely fell in love with, and we were constantly just eating, drinking, smoking, and occasionally playing a song. And there was like 48 hours of this. And then right after the holidays we just kind of roughly mixed it, and that was the record. But it really was just like something you’d do in another country or something, like a two-and-a-half-day party that involved recording and playing music. Not in a bad way, it was like something that musicians have been doing for thousands of years.

JamBase: I think a lot of people sort of imagine that as the rock & roll fantasy lifestyle, like that’s what musicians do for every album.

Billy Nershi & Vince Herman – Leftover Salmon

David Lowery: Mmm hmm, but they don’t! But that’s what those sessions were [like], and [the album] is just a great documentation of that, and I’m very happy with it. And that just sort of bonded the two bands together, and kind of introduced our audiences to each other. You know, they’re kind of like “our guys.” In some ways, they don’t exactly fit. They’re a little bit the odd man out in the jam world, because they lean a little more bluegrass, more traditional than most, and Cracker is sort of the odd man out in the alternative world because we do lean towards country and the more jammy stuff. And so we are sort of the odd man out in that world, and so there’s a kindred spirit connection there.

JamBase: So, how would you say working with Leftover Salmon has influenced your music, or you personally?

David Lowery: Well, like I said, I never had really recorded a record quite in the way that we recorded that record that we did together. And since that time, it’s not like I’ve ever done any Cracker records that way, but at our studio, with certain artists that I’m involved in recording or producing, I have adopted sort of a much more informal “let’s eat, let’s drink, let’s do this, and we’ll record and see what happens,” approach on some projects that I have recorded there.

Also, Johnny and I are going to do something with this [Leftover Salmon] 20th anniversary party, too. We will be joining the Leftover Salmon guys on January 2 at the Ogden Theatre. We’re playing New Year’s Eve in Denver, so we’re just going to stay and go to the party and play, which is going to be great. Basically, on their home turf, it’ll be fantastic.

JamBase: What about Leftover Salmon’s influence on the music world in general?

David Lowery: Well, I believe that they are the guys that brought bluegrass to the jam world, and you see a lot of that now. It’s everywhere, and they brought that in; they made that part of it. Before, it was more jazz-based, and now it seems there’s more roots-based stuff, and clearly, they were the first ones to really do that. And [they have] just good ensemble playing, with solos but rooted to a pretty traditional song structure. I think it was a really necessary thing to happen in the scene, and they did that well.

Continue reading to download Part 3 of our FREE Leftover Salmon live double album…

You can download Part 3 of the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler HERE.

Just unzip the folder and play. If you drag in to iTunes, all show information, comments, and even album art will be imported and displayed. Download and add each part to your iTunes or burn to CDs as they become available to complete the double album set!

Track Listing for Part 3 of the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler:

17. Austin Five (Mark Vann Original, Never Released) 5:53

03/26/2001 The Canopy – Urbana, IL

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Mark Vann

18. Teen Angst (with David Lowery) 5:12
09/24 & 09/25/2002 David Lowery’s Studio – Richmond, VA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Noam Pikelny, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: David Faragher/David Lowery/John Hickman – Cracker

19. Dark Hollow (with Del McCoury) 4:09

11/09/2002 The NorVa – Norfolk, VA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Noam Pikelny, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Bill Browning

20. Rocky Road Blues (with Mike Gordon) 4:30

12/04/2002 Higher Ground – Winooski, VT

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Noam Pikelny, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Bill Monroe

21. Ain’t No Use (with David Grisman) 7:28

01/29/2003 McNear’s Mystic Theatre – Petaluma, CA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Noam Pikelny, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Joseph Modeliste/Arthur L Neville/Leo Nocentelli/George Porter Jr.

22. Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow (with Sam Bush and Ross Martin) 6:47

02/20/2003 Fox Theater – Boulder, CO

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Noam Pikelny, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison, Jose Martinez

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Traditionally arranged by Leftover Salmon

Download Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Check back for Part 4 of our Leftover Salmon 20 Year Celebration featuring the final batch of free music to complete the double album!

JamBase | Everywhere

Go See Live Music!

Welcome to Part 2 of our Leftover Salmon: Celebrating 20 Years feature. It is with great pride that we offer you this unique, multi-part series full of interviews, photos, videos, and two albums worth (28 tracks total) of mostly never-before released live Leftover Salmon!

In Part 1 of our feature we spoke with founders Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt, as well as Sam Bush, Wavy Gravy, Yonder Mountain String Band‘s Ben Kaufmann, Little Feat‘s Paul Barrere, Ronnie McCoury, and more to tell the complete story of this legendary band.

Part 1 also included the first set of songs from our free double album giveaway. You can read the full history of Leftover Salmon in Part 1 here, and you can download the first set of songs from the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler here. Part 2 of the live download is offered here, and if you go to the last page of this feature you will find complete track list info and download instructions.

The second batch of songs we’re offering include sit-ins from such luminaries as Phish‘s Trey Anastasio, Widespread Panic‘s John Bell, Pete Sears, Karl Denson, John Cowan, and Jeff Austin.

We caught up with most of these artists to help shed light on just how deep Leftover Salmon’s influence runs. So, fire up that audio player at the top of this article (featuring all the songs we’re giving away in Part 2) and dig into some Leftover Salmon.

John Bell – Widespread Panic

JamBase: Thinking about Leftover Salmon’s 20 year history, how do you feel they have most significantly influenced the music world?

Vince Herman & John Bell – Leftover Salmon by Weintrob

JB: I notice a lot of new, and very cool, bands on the scene that have turned traditional bluegrass instrumentation up a notch. It wakes you up to the energy of our most recent generation. Leftover Salmon was working in that world years ago. I believe they are a crucial link to keeping bluegrass roots alive and evolving.

JamBase: In what way has Leftover Salmon influenced your own music or perhaps your life?

JB: Listening to and playing with the boys are genuine vehicles for having a good time. They are fun and funny to hang with, and I’ve never witnessed an ego-based moment in any of them. They are a rare reminder that music is best expressed with selfless awareness.

JamBase: On 9/9/2000 at Planet Salmon in Lyons, CO, you sat in with the band on a big “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” jam with Jeff Austin, Pete Sears, and John Cowan. We are featuring this song in our live album giveaway and are wondering if you have any memories of that night, perhaps even the songs?

JB: At Planet Salmon I remember riding through the audience in a wagon wearing some freaky, wizard-y costume. I think we were throwing trinkets out to The People, Mardi Gras style. Mostly, I was trying to keep from falling off that particular wagon.

I was also invited to play “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” with Salmon on a studio album – we did a couple run throughs, two live takes without overdubs, and picked one as the track. All of life should be that uncomplicated. I was truly honored to be included. I think there was beer involved. Col. Bruce Hampton was my chaperone.

Continue reading for more interviews pertaining to Leftover Salmon…

Jeff Austin – Yonder Mountain String Band

JamBase: Thinking about Leftover Salmon’s 20 year history, how do you feel they have most significantly influenced the music world?

Jeff Austin & Vince Herman by Jason Schwartz

Jeff Austin: Leftover Salmon has given so many young and upcoming artists – like I guess I once was – so much hope that if you just make music that has a great deal of originality, people will be drawn to it. Audiences will embrace you in a whole different way if you show them your heart and soul. That’s what Salmon has given me over my time seeing them – a lot of heart and soul. And a lot of guts, too.

JamBase: On 9/9/2000 at Planet Salmon in Lyons, CO, you sat in with the band on a big “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” jam with John Bell, Pete Sears, and John Cowan. We are featuring this song in our live album giveaway and are wondering if you have any memories of that night, perhaps even the songs?

Jeff Austin: The Salmon guys have always been so encouraging to me in a lot of ways – from Vince helping me book the first Yonder tours, to Drew selling me one of his mandolins – but, I’ll never forget the early days when they would invite me up onstage, especially at Salmonfest. Yonder hadn’t been a band but about a year, and Vince pulls me up and tells me to come play, and there I am standing next to him and John Bell. For someone who was just coming up and trying to make it in the music scene it was a huge showing of generosity through music. They didn’t have to invite me up to play. They weren’t doing it to gain anything; they just always wanted to share the music that they made. They were always so unselfish with the music, and they still are. Those early invites to sit in, to meet and play with some amazing musicians, it had an impact on me I’m not sure I can explain. It was like a huge pat on the back; a showing of belief and confidence from a group of guys I had – and still have – so much respect for. It is quite a personally moving experience every time I get asked to sit in with Leftover Salmon, and it’s really fucking fun, too.

John Cowan

JamBase: Thinking about Leftover Salmon’s 20 year history, how do you feel they have most significantly influenced the music world?

Leftover Salmon by Eric Abramson

John Cowan: To me, Salmon has always been a wondrous, curious mix of serious musicianship and the revelry of vaudeville, merry pranksters and carnival. I think we – the audience/the world – need to laugh while our souls are being opened by heartfelt music. The obvious answer to this is that Salmon brought not only their own music with mandolin/fiddle/banjo but John Hartford, NGR, Hot Rize, etc. to kids who perhaps never would have had the access to it.

JamBase: In what way has Leftover Salmon influenced your own music or perhaps your life?

John Cowan: I came from a place or school of thought where music, the study of it and performing it, is very self-centered, almost like jazz or classical. Seeing Salmon over the years and the way they literally “inter-acted” with their audience was really good for a lot of us old fuckers. It taught me that staring down at my feet with my hair covering my face and my eyes closed in concentration is a much harder, longer way to include the audience than making a conscious decision to let the audience be part of not only the “creative moment” but, in fact, BE the creative moment.

JamBase: On 9/9/2000 at Planet Salmon in Lyons, CO, you sat in with the band on a big “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” jam with Jeff Austin, Pete Sears and John Bell. We are featuring this song in our live album giveaway and are wondering if you have any memories of that night, perhaps even the songs?

John Cowan: I remember it very well. The last time I ingested any psychedelic properties – that I can remember – was probably ’85. I remember thinking, “A lot of people are tripping out here. That’s cool!” Ha! It was the first time I met John Bell and probably the first time I met Jeff Austin. It was kind of actually like Mayor McCheese meets Dr. John (The Night Tripper) meets Kurt Vonnegut, and they go over to James Thurber’s for cocktails. I’ve always loved this song. What’s cool is everyone learns it from a different artist. I learned it from listening to Freddie King, who has always done it sort of uptempo, which is not how it is traditionally performed.

Performing with Salmon was/is always an exercise in letting my eight-year-old self hang out with my freshman-in-college self, hang out with my present-day self. It’s ALWAYS nothing like you think it’s going to be, but you know by their smiles that they have your back, so it’s okay to surrender and just go ahead and jump off the cliff with ‘em.

Continue reading for more interviews pertaining to Leftover Salmon…

Pete Sears

Thinking about Leftover Salmon’s 20 year history, how do you feel they have most significantly influenced the music world?

Pete Sears & Drew Emmitt – Leftover Salmon by Weintrob

Pete Sears: I met the guys from Leftover Salmon at a party Bill Graham was throwing at his place in Mill Valley, California. They were the entertainment that day, and their sideways, non-traditional approach to playing bluegrass made a strong impression on me. It was obvious they were all amazingly talented on their instruments and were also well versed in traditional bluegrass, but they gave it a more modern, quirky, anything goes slant, especially Vince’s almost vaudevillian style as a frontman. He’d go barefooted onstage, which you don’t see too often, and he’s very good at connecting with an audience. He is also very good at adlibbing lyrics, if he feels so moved. I remember Drew on mandolin and Mark on banjo trading licks on the bus between shows; they were always playing and obviously lived for their music. To my knowledge, Salmon was the first band to fuse Cajun, rock, and bluegrass. It really was a new sound. I think they called it Polyethnic Cajun Slamgrass, or something like that. They helped influence a whole new crop of bands in similar styles, including The String Cheese Incident.

JamBase: In what way has Leftover Salmon influenced your own music or perhaps your life?

Pete Sear: Every band I’ve played with since 1964 in England has influenced me in one way or another, and Salmon is no exception. I already loved listening to traditional bluegrass, and loved Cajun and zydeco, so it was a lot of fun playing with Salmon, although often challenging. Peter Rowan and I had done a tour of Colorado as a duo, and piano had fit in with Peter’s style of bluegrass very well. But playing with Salmon was sometimes a bit like falling off a boat in the open ocean and wondering if you are going to be a good enough swimmer to make it back to shore. They’d start off with a nice medium tempo blues or folk song or something then without warning launch into a manic bluegrass number in the key of B at 500 miles per hour, with everybody leaping around all over the place. I’d vamp along for half the tune on piano, not generally an instrument used in that kind of banjo bluegrass picking, knowing full well that at any minute they were all going to look at me expectantly to take a solo and wondering if my fingers were going to be fast enough to cut it. You just have to sort of say, “To hell with it,” close your eyes, hunch your shoulders, and go for it. It was a lot of fun though. It seemed to work out okay most of the time…I think. I also played some accordion with them, there’s a YouTube out there called “4:20 Polka” of us at Wavy’s “Pignic” in Laytonville, California. Mark was still with us back then. He played some amazing banjo licks; the whole band played great that day.

JamBase: On 4/4/1997 at The Fillmore in San Francisco you sat in with Leftover Salmon on “Funky Mountain Fogdown.” You also sat in with the band on a big jam of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” with John Bell, Jeff Austin and John Cowan on 9/9/2000 at Planet Salmon. We are featuring both of these songs in our live album giveaway and are wondering if you have any memories of either night, perhaps even the songs?

Sears, Emmitt, Bell, North – Leftover Salmon by Weintrob

Pete Sears: I do remember sitting in on those shows, but don’t recall what we played. One show with Salmon sticks out in my mind. It was in Chicago. I played a slow blues with them and Sugar Blue sat in also, he played some amazing harp. They have a recording of it somewhere; I’d love to hear it some time. Afterwards, we all went down to the Kingston Mines and listened to R&B and blues into the early hours of the morning.

I did a few tours with the early Salmon, mostly between my gigs with Hot Tuna and Zero. They had an old yellow school bus, which had been modified with plywood. They gave me a bunk to use. It was a bit like going back to my early years touring England with my first band, The Sons of Fred, in 1964. We’d play six or seven nights a week all over the British Isles, traveling in an old, beat up van with a couple of guys lying on top of the amps in the back. We played a few TV shows and recorded at Abby Road Studios, then EMI, but most of the time we roughed it. Salmon’s bus was full of music, laughs, and pot smoke. I hadn’t smoked much for many years, so the secondary smoke gave me a nice mellow high. It was sort of like traveling in a big yellow joint with wheels. As well as respecting the band’s musicianship, I liked them as people. The road manager, crew, everyone was into the music and played an essential part in keeping things running as smoothly as possible.

I remember one time I joined them for a few shows when they came through California. They were towing this fiberglass fish behind the bus. It was to spread word about saving our rivers from pollution. I got this crazy idea to get a friend of mine who had an old Stearman biplane to fly alongside the bus and film us as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. I used to fly this old plane myself; it was beautiful. He was unfortunately only able to make one pass due to restricted airspace. We did get a few seconds of shaky film though; it’s hard to film out of an open cockpit. Not sure if I ever showed the band what we got on film that day. All I know is we had a lot of fun driving across the bridge looking up at the old biplane with the Pacific Ocean in the background, and parking over at the Marin Headlands. It was a beautiful sunny day; we laughed a lot.

Another incident sticks out to me. I remember being present at a band meeting in Denver when a large, well-known booking agency offered Salmon a chance to take everything up to another level. They declined out of loyalty to the guy who was already booking them. You don’t come across that sort of selflessness much in this business. I was impressed. You could say by staying loyal to their booking agent they may have held themselves back from perhaps becoming a stadium band, but at the same time, that decision enriched their sense of personal integrity. I didn’t play much with them after Mark died. I loved that man; he had a pure spirit. I have jammed with both Drew and Vince since the old days though. Leftover Salmon made an important mark on the music of an entire generation, and I am proud to have been a small part of it.

Continue reading to download Part 2 of our FREE Leftover Salmon live double album…

You can download Part 2 of the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler HERE.

Just unzip the folder and play. If you drag in to iTunes, all show information, comments, and even album art will be imported and displayed. Download and add each part to your iTunes or burn to CDs as they become available to complete the double album set!

Track Listing for Part 2 of the Leftover Salmon Celebrating 20 Years sampler:

9. Hot Burrito Breakdown 3:47 – 08/07/1995 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Michael Wooten, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Chris Ethridge / Gram Parsons

10. River’s Rising 6:59 – 07/14/1996 Great American Music Festival – Winter Park, CO

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Michael Wooten, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Drew Emmitt – Leftover Salmon

11. Funky Mountain Fogdown (with Pete Sears) 4:43 – 04/14/1997 The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Michael Wooten, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Mark Vann – Leftover Salmon

12. Up On The Hill Where We Do The Boogie 4:16 – 02/16/1998 JR’s Dickson Street Ball Room – Fayetteville, AR

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Jeff Sipe, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: John Hartford

13. Little Maggie 4:12 – 02/22/1998 Tipitina’s – New Orleans, LA

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Jeff Sipe, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Traditional, Arranged by Leftover Salmon

14. Mama Look a Boo Boo (with Karl Denson) 4:11 – 04/22/1999 Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Jeff Sipe, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Harry Belafonte

15. Ohh Las Vegas (with Trey Anastasio) 7:38 – 09/20/1999 Rialto Theater – Tucson, AZ

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Jeff Sipe, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Graham Parsons

16. Nobody’s Fault But Mine (with John Bell, Jeff Austin, Pete Sears and John Cowan) 8:47
09/09/2000 Planet Salmon – Lyons, CO

Band: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt, Mark Vann, Jeff Sipe, Tye North

Songwriter/Composer Credits: Nina Simone

Download Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Check back for Part 3 of our Leftover Salmon 20 Year Celebration featuring a bunch more free music!