Performance Details

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

 
Andy Thorn returns to Vail with Jon Stickley (Jon Stickley Trio), Andy Hall (Infamous Stringdusters), Garrett Sayers (The Motet), and Alwyn Robinson (Leftover Salmon).

Since being drafted from the Emmitt-Nershi Band to join Leftover Salmon, Andy Thorn’s powerful, driving, banjo picking has helped carry the band to new heights. Despite his young age, the North Carolina native brings a wealth of experience to the banjo seat in Leftover Salmon. Thorn first began playing banjo at age 12 after purchasing one at his neighbor’s yard sale and has not stopped picking since. After high school, Thorn moved onto the University of North Carolina where he earned a degree in Jazz Guitar and played in seminal local band Big Fat Gap, which has a long history of graduating players into bigger bands.

From there he moved to Colorado and joined The Broke Mountain Bluegrass Band, which included Anders Beck from Greensky Bluegrass and Travis Book from The Infamous Stringdusters in its lineup. The band was only around for a brief time, but they won the 2003 RockyGrass Bluegrass Festival Band Contest. That same year Thorn won the RockyGrass banjo contest. Despite the wave of attention that followed, the band soon broke up as they all begin to move onto other bands. Thorn moved back to the East Coast and joined flatpicking legend Larry Keel’s band. His time with Keel was brief as he was then recruited to fill the empty banjo spot in the Emmitt-Nershi Band, which led to him to officially joining Leftover Salmon in 2011.

Learn more at andythornmusic.com.