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About the video
"Flux"and his band perform "Patrick Meets the Brickbats" at Merlefest 2002
About the artist
Jerry Douglas is widely renowned as perhaps the finest dobro player in
contemporary acoustic music. His main foundation is bluegrass, but Douglas is
an eclectic whose tastes run toward jazz, blues, folk, and straight-ahead country
as well, and he's equally capable of appealing to bluegrass aficionados or new
agers with a taste for instrumental roots music. What's more, his progressive
sensibility as a composer has earned him comparisons to like-minded virtuosos
Béla Fleck and David Grisman.
Douglas was born in Columbus, OH, in 1955, and began playing the dobro at
age eight with encouragement from his father, who was also a bluegrass
musician. By his teen years, Douglas was already a member of his father's band,
and his playing was especially influenced by Josh Graves of Flatt Scruggs'
Foggy Mountain Boys.
Douglas was discovered at a festival by the Country Gentlemen, who took him
on tour with them for the rest of the summer and later brought him into the
recording studio. From there, Douglas established himself as a hugely
in-demand session musician; during the latter half of the '70s, he worked with the
likes of J.D. Crowe the New South, David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Doyle Lawson,
and Tony Rice.
Additionally, Douglas released his debut album, Fluxology, on Rounder in 1979;
he followed it three years later with Fluxedo, which like its predecessor stuck
relatively close to traditional (albeit sometimes jazzy) bluegrass.
During the early '80s, Douglas continued his session career with even greater
success, adding Emmylou Harris, Béla Fleck, the Whites, and Peter Rowan to his
list of credits. He returned to his solo career with 1986's Under the Wire on
Sugar Hill, which reflected his interest in the progressive new-acoustic (or
"newgrass") movement.
He subsequently signed with MCA, where he issued Changing Channels (1987)
and the smoother, strongly jazz-influenced Plant Early (1989). More session
work for increasingly prominent artists brought him into the '90s, with names like
Alison Krauss, Del McCoury, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Randy Travis,
Clint Black, Patty Loveless, Suzy Bogguss, Reba McEntire, Kathy Mattea, and
Dolly Parton on his resumé.
In 1992, he returned to Sugar Hill for the more traditional bluegrass outing Slide
Rule, which many critics ranked among his finest recordings. The following year
brought the all-instrumental Skip, Hop Wobble, a trio recording with Russ
Barenberg and Edgar Meyer.
In 1994, Douglas contributed to the Grammy-winning compilation Great Dobro
Sessions, and cut a duo album with Peter Rowan, Yonder, in 1996. 1998's
Restless on the Farm, true to its title, was a return to Douglas' freewheeling
eclecticism, which continued on 2002's Lookout for Hope.
- Steve Huey, All Music Guide