Tom Adams will be joining Bill Emerson and the Sweet Dixie Band on guitar as of September 5.

We reported just two months ago that Tom was launching a new endeavor, Diamond Joe, with banjoist Chris Warner but that group has now disbanded. Tom says that the recordings the band has already made will be incorcorated into an upcoming Chris Warner release on Patuxent Records, and they will continue to track with Chris for this project.

You can find the tour schedule for The Sweet Dixie Band on their MySpace page.

When we posted last week about Chris Warner’s CD reissue of two previous LP releases, we included a passing reference to Tom Adams’ non-denial of the rumor that he and Chris were starting a band.

Tom’s coyness aside, Chris has verified that they have indeed begun rehearsals and expect to launch Diamond Joe in the very near future. He tells us that they will be recording later this month and plan to send out a two-song promo CD to festival and event producers soon. A full-length CD release is anticipated for 2009.

Banjo players may quickly notice that Chris and Tom in the same band suggests something of a bonus in the banjo department, but no…. this will not be a double banjo act.

As we noted last summer, Tom Adams has decided to give up on the banjo as a result of his battle with focal dystonia, a nervous system disorder that has troubled him this past six years. He had initially attempted to continue performing on banjo in a modified two finger style, but was not able to play up to his own standards, and made the difficult decision to lay the banjo down.

But he didn’t give up on bluegrass music, and has since been working seriously on the guitar. The disease had affected his right hand, making for unpredictable results when playing banjo in a roll style, but Chris says that Tom has no trouble using a flatpick in a closed hand.

“Tom has been working hard on guitar, and has become a fine player. He and I actually played in a band together many years ago, with me on banjo and him on guitar, so this isn’t really a first.”

Rounding out the band are fellow Pennsylvanians Mark Seitz on mandolin and Steve Streett on bass.

Diamond Joe is booking now, and can be reached through Tom Adams’ web site until the band’s new site is complete.

It’s been just three months since Tom Adams announced that he’d be giving the banjo a rest, but music fans at London’s East End Pub were treated to the rejuvenated strains of Adams’ new sound and the new group he’s fronting, Iron Mitten. Although Monday night’s concert was in direct competition with Led Zeppelin’s reunion gig at the 02 Arena, Iron Mitten’s drummer, Eric Dinst, expressed confidence that Zeppelin’s appearance would have no effect on their expected crowd.

UK correspondent, Richard Thompson, spoke with Dinst between sets about Iron Mitten’s upcoming tour in support of their first album.

RT: Could you fill me in on some details about Tom’s new right hand, and then we’ll move on to the band’s new CD?

IM: Yes, it’s brand new and quite shiny, wouldn’t you say? And this – this right here is the cover of our debut CD, entitled “Pick Noise.”

RT: I can certainly see where that could be a problem.

IM: What do you, what sort of problem would there be with that title?

RT: No, I’m talking about the sound of your banjo player’s metal prosthesis scraping the metal strings while he’s playing a forward roll.

IM: Well, there’s not really a direction to the roll. It’s, you know, if you were reaching into a deep fryer to pull out a chicken leg, it’s more of that kind of motion, really.

RT: But there would still be pick noise, right?

IM: Oh, yeah. The whole album is “Pick Noise.” That’s the name of the whole thing. Like, no matter which track you played and somebody came up to you and said, “What’s that?” I’d say “Pick Noise.” Do you – do you not get it?

RT: No. In fact, I don’t see the album’s title anywhere on the cover.

IM: Well of course you don’t see it. You can’t see it; you hear it.

RT: So, that could be a problem.

IM: I don’t follow.

Tom Adams has just published a new book of banjo transcriptions taken from his playing on Audie Blaylock’s Trains Are The Only Way To Fly CD. The book contains tabs for all Tom’s breaks and multiple backup sections in this 34 page spiral bound volume.

Adams came to the attention of the bluegrass world as a member of Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys in the 1980s - which is also where he first met Audie Blaylock, who was on mandolin with Martin at the time. The two mens’ paths would continue to cross as Adams and Blaylock later worked together with both Lynn Morris and Rhonda Vincent.

Tom describes his picking on the Trains CD as emblematic of the style he used when he played with Jimmy Martin - aggressive and hard-driving - with much of the material coming from the Martin repertoire.

The book is available from Tom’s Adams County Banjo web site, along with his three other banjo tab books.

Tom Adams, celebrated former banjo player with The Johnson Mountain Boys, Blue Highway and others, has announced his plans to set the banjo down, and perhaps focus on guitar instead. He has been suffering from focal dystonia for the past six years, a nervous system disorder which has made it increasingly difficult for him to play the banjo to his own high standards of professionalism.

Tom says that he will leave the band Seneca Rocks after this weekend, and cease his monthly column in Banjo NewsLetter and his private banjo lessons as well.

“I’ve enjoyed doing all of these things, but I need to stop putting myself in the position of having to play (the banjo) in public and then coming home feeling like I’ve let the other musicians and the audience down.”

It seems that a major factor in his decision came when he spent a good bit of time playing the guitar, and finding that the disorder which caused the misfiring of neurons in his right hand when picking the banjo, was not affecting his ability to use a flatpick.

“At the Nova Scotia banjo camp last weekend, I played more guitar than I did banjo, backing up fiddle and banjo players, and I had a blast, playing guitar for hours each day. I truly enjoyed playing music in a way I have not enjoyed it in the six years since the dystonia began.”

While we will all miss Tom’s superb banjo work, I congratulate him for finding a way to continue to enjoy creating music, and for his willingness to hold his standards high, even when facing such an unkind choice.

We posted last year about the formation of Seneca Rocks!, a new part-time bluegrass band made up of prominent veteran performers. The group include Dudley Connell on guitar, Tom Adams on banjo, David McLaughlin on mandolin, Sally Love on guitar and Marshall Wilborn on bass. Dudley and Sally are the group’s primary vocalists.

They started working on a debut recording last summer, and Tom Adams recently reported that they have were back in the studio last week trying to get things completed. No word yet on when it might be finished or released.

Our June ‘06 post has a good bit of background on this group, and some comment from the band members on the inescapable “Johnson Mountain Boys reunion” vibe that comes to mind when you see Adams, Connell, McLaughlin and Wilborn together on stage.

Updated 6/16, 7:00 a.m.
The recent history of bluegrass music has seen the occasion of a number of “part time” bands, made up of members of other full time touring acts. Perhaps the most prominent was The Bluegrass Album Band, featuring Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, JD Crowe, Bobby Hicks and Todd Phillips, whose CDs still are top sellers, and whose few short tours were something of a bluegrass sensation. Longview made, and continues to make their mark in this realm, with James King, Dudley Connell, Don Rigsby, Marshall Wilborn, Joe Mullins and Glenn Duncan - though current membership has changed considerably for their 2006 dates.

White House was a Nashville-area outfit that produced a CD and performed a few shows with David Parmley, Missy Raines, Charlie Cushman, Larry Stephenson and Jason Carter, and The Dreadful Snakes and The Sidemen were Nashville favorites at The Station Inn.

A new group in the VA/MD area sure to generate a similar sort of buzz is Seneca Rocks! Band members include Dudley Connell, Marshall Wilborn, Sally Love, David McLaughlin and Tom Adams. Students of 1970s era bluegrass will recognize that the four gentlemen in the group were all part of The Johnson Mountain Boys, a dynamic and engaging band that developed a large and loyal following for their brand of traditional “old school” bluegrass.

Each has remained active in bluegrass since JMB disbanded. Dudley now plays guitar and sings with Seldom Scene, Marshall is in frequent demand as a free-lance and session bass man, and has worked for quite some time with his wife, Lynn Morris. David has been most active as a recording engineer and producer, and has released an instructional DVD for mandolin. (more…)