For recordings, click here

 

Name Dropping: “Bob Dylan has never heard of him”

I began playing music professionally in 1968 or thereabouts and have played solo as well as in a variety of groups including rock bands, jazz ensembles, swing bands, country, blues, and folk ensembles. Over the years I have recorded an album of songs for Inner City Records (produced by Dick Weissman and entitled MIDNIGHT LULLABYE), produced the album BORN BY THE RIVER for the acoustic duo, Stockton and Johnson, and played on (and acted as music director for) Lisa Bigwood’s debut CD release LIKE NO ONE ELSE as well as her follow up- WOODLAND. Recently, I recorded another project called OLD FRIENDS, which I co-produced with my friend Glenn Drinkwater.

Through the years I’ve worked with a number of other recording artists including Grammy award winner Bruce Carroll, John Wesley Ryles, James McMurtry, and Dick Weissman to name a few.

For several years I found myself opening shows for a variety of artists including Cheryl Wheeler, Chris Smither, Lucy Kaplansky, Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Small Potatoes, Jack Hardy, and probably a few I’m forgetting about.

These days I’m occasionally playing 7-string bass with Blues/R & B power trio Bowery Creek, staying busy with my business, Gruning Audioworks, and playing solo singer/songwriter jobs.

Factory Training: “Breaking new wind on the forefront of knowledge”

In 1973 I began studying music—specifically composition—at the University of Colorado at Denver. I dropped out in 1975 and moved to Boston where I practiced guitar for thousands of hours in the year spent there.

In the mid-eighties I attended the University of Texas at San Antonio and received an Undergraduate degree in composition in 1988.

In 1992 I studied composition with David Liptak at the Eastman School of Music.

In 1993 I began graduate studies at Syracuse University studying composition with Daniel Godfrey and received the Masters of Music degree in 1995.

In 1996 I began work on the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at the University of Texas at Austin. By then, composing “serious” music had become stale for me. My work from that period clearly reflected that. A year or so later I switched to the Ph.D. program in ethnomusicology and never looked back. I defended my dissertation (on modernity, the American ‘Folk,’ and contemporary singer/songwriters) in April 2003.

In 2001 I accepted a visiting professorship at the State University of New York at Cobleskill, where I taught classes in Rock/Popular Culture and World Music, as well as directing various choirs.

In May 2003 I received my Ph.D. in ethnomusicology.

2006: My book, Millennium Folk: American Folk Music since the Sixties, was published by The University of Georgia Press.

2011: founded Gruning Audioworks, LLC.