List of Appalachian dulcimer players
Prominent mountain dulcimer players
Well-known musicians who play (or played) the Appalachian dulcimer as a primary instrument include:
- Don Pedi, In 1974 Don entered his first contest, at Fiddler's Grove in North Carolina, and won first place. By 1980 he had won so many contests at Fiddler's Grove that he was certified "Master Dulcimer Player" and retired from future competitions.[1]
- Robert Force. Pioneer of the standing up, overhand style of playing, has been a performer on the Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer for more than thirty-five years.
- Jean Ritchie
- Richard Fariña
- Nashville-based David Schnaufer recorded with The Judds, Kathy Mattea, Johnny Cash, and Mark O'Connor. Schnaufer was a historian of the instrument and the world's first and only dulcimer professor; he served as Adjunct Associate Professor of Dulcimer at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music from 1995 to his death in 2006.
- Stephen Seifert of Nashville, recognized as one of the most versatile and talented contemporary dulcimer players. A popular presence at American folk music festivals, Seifert also performs with classical symphonies around the United States.
- Lorraine "Lee" Hammond, one of the most accomplished contemporary mountain dulcimer players, recorded An Exultation of Dulcimers with Roger Nicholson (whose music she helped introduce to the United States).[2]
- Mark Gilston, one of the pioneers of adapting European traditional music to the Appalachian dulcimer in the 1970s. He is particularly well known for his Balkan, Scandinavian and Celtic dance music on the dulcimer.[3]
- Bing Futch has performed and recorded with the mountain dulcimer since 1986 and has used electric mountain dulcimer as the main instrument in his band Mohave[4] since 1999.
- Guitarist John Pearse, an early British enthusiast of the mountain dulcimer, was one of the first to introduce the dulcimer to English folk clubs in the 1960s.
- Roger Nicholson (1943-2009)[5] recorded a seminal album, Nonesuch for Dulcimer, with English guitarist and singer Robert Johnson (later of Steeleye Span) in 1972.
- Margaret MacArthur, folk music historian, musician and dulcimer instructor, introduced the mountain dulcimer to many folk musicians in the 1960s.
- Jen Clark, pioneer of dulcimer in Scottish traditional and contemporary music, toured extensively and recorded Stand Easy as a member of the Battlefield Band in 1979.[6]
- Dan Evans,[7] who developed a method of accompanying songs using chord inversions and fingerpicking in Ionian mode, recorded and performed with Roger Nicholson.[8]
Big-name musicians who have recorded with a mountain dulcimer
- Joni Mitchell played a dulcimer on the 1971 album Blue and included a dulcimer set in many of her live performances. She is credited with popularizing the instrument outside of US folk music circles in the 1970s.
- Many British folk-rock groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s featured the mountain dulcimer, including:
- Battlefield Band
- Pentangle
- Fairport Convention
- Steeleye Span (Tim Hart frequently played electric dulcimer on the band's early albums, most prominently on Hark! The Village Wait (1970) and Please to See the King (1971))
- Strawbs
- Cyndi Lauper plays the mountain dulcimer on A Night to Remember (1989), Sisters of Avalon (1996),
"Time after time" live at The Martha Steward Show The Body Acoustic (2005) and Avo Session (2008).
- An Appalachian dulcimer is prominent in the Rolling Stones songs "Lady Jane" and I Am Waiting; it was played by Brian Jones.
Other musicians
- Jeff Buckley played a dulcimer in his song Dream Brother featured on his record Grace, released in 1994.
- Vancouver musician Randy Raine-Reusch played the dulcimer on the Aerosmith album Pump (1989), in the track "Dulcimer Stomp." He has recently re-released three early recordings featuring the dulcimer.
- Joe Perry later recorded with a dulcimer on Aerosmith's Get a Grip album (1993).
- The group Little Big Town used the dulcimer on their second album, The Road to Here.
- Rob McMaken of Dromedary plays the dulcimer in gypsy styles.
- Amanda Barrett of The Ditty Bops is also known to play the dulcimer.
- The cello-rock band Rasputina has employed the dulcimer on their albums Frustration Plantation and Oh Perilous World! and the band's lead member Melora Creager has used the dulcimer on her solo album Perplexions, released in late 2006.
- Jerusalem-based multi-instrumentalist Bradley Fish's dulcimer loops on Sony Digital Pictures[9] are popular. Fish became known for using the instrument with an Eastern-influenced style and electronic effects on his 1996 collaboration "The Aquarium Conspiracy" with Sugarcubes/Björk drummer Sigtryggur Baldursson.
- Singer-songwriter Holly Brook plays the dulcimer on her debut album Like Blood, Like Honey.
- Singer-songwriter Heidi Mullerplays the dulcimer on her albums.[10]
- Peter Buck of R.E.M.
- Australian musician and busker Lindsay Bucklandplays an electric dulcimer suspending it from his neck like a guitar. Filtering the instrument through MIDI circuitry, he makes it produce the sound of saxes and other instruments.[11]
- A dulcimer is played on Nine Inch Nails' album Ghosts I-IV on song "22 Ghosts III" by Alessandro Cortini.
- Patrick Wolf
- Jimmy Page
- David Massengill
- Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard
- Laura Marling
- Rich Mullins
- Nigel Pennick, writer, and artist plays traditional music on mountain dulcimers in various tunings with The Traditional Music of Cambridgeshire Collective.
- Melora Creager of Rasputina plays dulcimer on most albums she records.
- Brian Jones (1942-1969) of the Rolling Stones.