Paul Buskirk

This talented picker is a threat on almost every instrument with strings. He is an accomplished guitarist, mandolinist, and banjoist, and fans of Paul Buskirk's various projects can bicker amongst themselves about what order of importance to list these instruments in. Perhaps they might want to list the dobro first. Buskirk cut an album devoted to playing on that instrument which certain record collectors have offered fat ransoms for. He has also been a champion of various forms of traditional string band music for more than 60 years. One of his supreme achievements along these lines is the 1981 Willie Nelson album entitled Somewhere Over the Rainbow, featuring standards played in a hot jazz style by a crack team of acoustic instrumentalists. Buskirk also acted as producer on this beautifully recorded album, all part of a life-long involvement with Nelson that seems to go in as many directions as the Rio Grande has tributaries. His musical roots were in guitar and mandolin but he added the tenor banjo simply because bandleader Gene Austin happened to ask if Buskirk could play it. He thereby joined a select group of musicians who added or switched instruments just because somebody asked them to, the most extreme example being jazz drummer Art Blakey, who switched from piano to drums at gunpoint, the music critic and control freak being a local gangster. Other musicians Buskirk has worked with include guitar honcho Chet Atkins, cowboy singing star Tex Ritter, Opry overlord Roy Acuff and many country legends such as Lefty Frizzell and the Louvin Brothers. Buskirk's reputation as a first class mandolinist goes back to the '40s. The brilliant mandolinist Red Rector recalls that during an era when bluegrass king Bill Monroe totally dominated the instrument, Buskirk had a...