Press

1/18/2019 - Alan Munde & Billy Bright's 'Oklahoma Bound' debuts at #6 on Grassicana Chart!
Alan Munde & Billy Bright's recording of Alan's tune, Oklahoma Bound, from their latest release, Es Mi Suerte (2018 Munde's Child Records), debuted on the Grassicana Chart this week at #6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRI--PFEnsE&list=RDSRI--PFEnsE&start_radio=1&t=93

12/7/2018 - Wood & Wire (w/Billy Bright) Grammy Nomination - 'Best Bluegrass Album'
61st annual Grammy Award nominations are out
Posted on December 7, 2018 By John Lawless

The nominations for the 2019 Grammy Awards have been announced. And we know that, despite all the glitz and glamor of the star-studded cast of nominees, what you really care about is the all-important Best Bluegrass Album category.

And the nominees are:

Portraits In Fiddles – Mike Barnett
Sister Sadie II – Sister Sadie
Rivers And Roads – Special Consensus
The Travelin’ McCourys – The Travelin’ McCourys
North Of Despair – Wood & Wire

The winners will be announced on February 10.



Banjo Newsletter 11/2018


Banjo Newsletter 11/2018


Fretmentor blog 10/21/18

Es Mi Suerte – Alan Munde & Billy Bright
Posted on October 21, 2018 by fretmentor


Since I started playing the banjo, I followed the career of Alan Munde. I fist purchased his tabs and learned his arrangements some 45 years ago. I also had the honor of hosting Alan at one of my fretmentor workshops here in Florida. An interview we conducted then was published in issue #37 of the Fretboard Journal. Let’s just say I can’t get enough of Alan and his music. His latest collaboration with mandolin player, Billy Bright, is a gem.


Es Mi Suerte By Alan Munde & Billy Bright

Recently, I acquired Alan Munde’s new CD from the master himself. On the CD titled “Es Mi Suerte”, Alan Munde on banjo and Billy Bright on mandolin, together offer a selection of unique songs that are sure to thrill you all. Dom Fisher plays upright bass throughout and Dennis Ludiker (fiddle) and Trevor Smith (banjo) make an appearance as well. Not only are 8 of the 10 songs originals but the listener gets a mix of tradition and progressive bluegrass, 1950s folk, Texas waltzes, a blend of Tex-Mex-Cajun and a tinge of country gospel. One could call this album a journey into all styles of acoustic roots music.


Banjo Legend Alan Munde

There are certainly some wonderful compositions on this CD.

Jenny’s Desire – inspired by a line in Mother Goose’s nursery rhyme.

Wild Heron – A Billy Bright original inspired by a lake where Billy married his wife.

Mom’s Waltz – Another Billy Bright original that is a tribute to his mom and moms everywhere.

Oklahoma Bound – Alan’s musical tribute to his Norman, Oklahoma roots.

Es Mi Suerte – The title song which means “It is my fate”. This tune is a tribute to Alan’s great friend and producer of many of Alan’s albums until his death in 2015.

Dapple Pattie – Another Munde original named after his wife’s late dachshund.

Munde’s Night Waltz – Alan’s research of fiddler’s found that they love to make up their own chord patterns, so Alan, Billy and Dennis Ludiker on fiddle, did the same.

By The Side of the Road – A cover written by Albert E. Brumley, Sr., is a gospel song about lifestyle choices.

Going Bodmin – A Munde original in which the title is also a Cornish colloquial phrase signifying someone has gone crazy. Trevor Smith adds harmony parts and take a crazy banjo solo on this selection.

Goodnight Irene – A song credited to Huddie Ledbetter, aka Leadbelly. Both Billy and Alan recorded it with a casual late night campfire feel and later overdubbed the accompanying guitars.


Es Mi Suerte

Es mi Suerte is available for purchase on most digital music platforms, including AirPlay Direct, Spotify and ITunes.

I highly recommend you add this album to your collection of music.



Bluegrass Today - Oklahoma Bound
Instrumental bluegrass duo Alan Munde and Billy Bright have released a video featuring one of the tunes from their upcoming album, Es Mi Suerte.

Billy plays mandolin with Wood & Wire, based in Austin, TX, and Alan is the retired former banjo maestro with Country Gazette, and long time professor in the commercial music program at South Plains College. At 72, Munde plays only when he wants to after a long career in bluegrass that started with Jimmy Martin in the late ’60s. And he wants to play with Bright in their duet setting, where they focus on original instrumental music.

Long known for a willingness to experiment within the confines of bluegrass banjo, Munde has a well-deserved reputation as a technical master of the five string. He is among the chief innovators of playing fiddle music on the banjo, with an approach that never sacrifices the driving sound Earl Scruggs gave us in order to replicate complex fiddle tunes. That is in evidence in this live video of he and Billy, with Dom Fisher on bass, playing Oklahoma Bound from the new CD.

Of course, Bright’s no slouch himself as the two trade off and twin a bit on the Munde composition in the key of G.



In keeping with their theme, 8 of the 10 tracks on Es Mi Suerte were written by Munde and/or Bright, and recorded with Dennis Ludiker on fiddle, Fisher on bass, and Trevor Smith on second banjo. They include a healthy dose of grass along with some Texas waltzes, and a touch of Tex Mex Cajun.

Oklahoma Bound and a few other selected tracks are available now to radio programmers in advance of the album release at AirPlay Direct. Look for the full project on September 14, when it will be offered on Alan’s web site and popular download destinations.

Wood & Wire are invited showcase artists for the IBMA’s Bluegrass Ramble during this month’s World of Bluegrass convention in Raleigh. Alan will join them to preview a few tunes from the new record on a couple of their sets.

full article:

https://bluegrasstoday.com/oklahoma-bound-video-from-alan-munde-and-billy-bright/



Es Mi Suerte
Mandolinist Billy Bright and banjo legend Alan Munde team up once again, following the success of their 2014 acoustic duet project, Bright Munde.

Their latest project, Es Mi Suerte, showcases instrumental mastery of all styles of acoustic roots music. Eight of the ten songs are originals, capturing the spirit of traditional and progressive bluegrass, 1950s folk, Texas waltzes, a blend of Tex-Mex-Cajun and a tinge of country gospel.

They're joined this time around by Billy's band mates of Austins terrific Wood and Wire,musicians who also know their way around acoustic roots music.

Read More

BLUEGRASS TODAY BRIGHT MUNDE
New music from Alan Munde is always good news for followers of adventurous five string banjo playing, and his latest, Bright Munde, a set of banjo/mandolin duets with Billy Bright, is another cause for rejoicing.

It’s not likely that many readers spent hundreds of hours in their salad days transcribing and learning every tune that Alan recorded, but as a theme for wasted youth, it has much to recommend it. This was the path I followed, and I have cherished his music for more than forty years since.

By the mid-1970s Munde was a major force in modern banjo music. A number of recordings with Country Gazette were available, along with instrumental masterpieces Poor Richard’s Almanac (with Sam Bush) and his own brilliant Banjo Sandwich record. Alan had also completed a brief apprenticeship with Jimmy Martin, at the time a crucial step for a future banjo hero.

The Country Gazette was his musical home until the early ’90s, by which time he had settled in as a full-time instructor at South Plains College in Levelland, TX teaching bluegrass and professional music to young people who travelled from all over the world to study with him. He has since retired from teaching, but not from music, even following emergency cardiac surgery late in 2011.

His partner on Bright Munde is Billy Bright, a Texas mandolinist os some note, well-remembered for his own solo work and a stint with Tony Rice and Peter Rowan. Billy and Alan are truly neighbors, living within a few miles of each other near Austin, TX, which has led to many local gigs, jam sessions, and ultimately, this record.

Billy proves an able duet partner throughout, and contributes four of his own tunes to the album, but it’s Alan’s music that sets the tone. Together they sample the many musical forms that make up acoustic string music. Bluegrass and Scruggs-style picking are represented with Geezer Ride and Everybody Say Wow, and Munde presents a fun swing tune, Like Sonny, inspired by what he calls “a super cool Sonny Osborne lick.”




You’ll find a touch of JazzGrass, a hybrid style pioneered by Munde and Texas guitarist Slim Richey, in Alan’s compositions G and Hot Dog Dreams, plus a lovely jazz waltz, Sad Eyes. Billy’s Yellow Rocking Chair pays tribute to Texas fiddle music, as his Red Fox In The Bush brings Appalachian fiddle traditions to mind. There’s even a touch of barnyard onomatopoeia in Who Killed The Shanghai Rooster, which Alan says he learned from hearing Don Stover play it at a festival jam years ago.

Bright Munde is a joy from start to finish, not withstanding the disturbingly eerie cover image that finds the two artists in mid-morph.

The album can be purchased on CD from Alan’s web site. Banjo tabs for the solos are available there as well.