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Hometown: Santa Monica, CA
Genre: Other
Three virtuoso acoustic instrumentalists – mandolinist Bob Applebaum and guitarists Mitch Greenhill and Peter Spelman – have joined their considerable musical forces to create String Madness. These accomplished musical masters have fearless fun taking crazy side-trips through string band music from Bach to Bebop and beyond. Audiences call String Madness “refreshing” “cleansing” “rejuvenating” “delightful” and “inspiring.” Traveling beyond words, the band has carved out an instrumental repertoire of original compositions along with familiar favorites, including jazz scripture from the Books of Django and Miles. Wide-ranging improvised solos interweave with arranged harmonies and unison lines to propel a joyful musical exploration, a collaboration that is String Madness.
String Madness has performed at Merlefest, McCabe’s, Coffee Gallery, Boulevard Music, the Fret House, the Church In Ocean Park, private parties, and regularly at Firefly Bistro. They have released one CD “String Madness” and are in the midst of recording a new CD, funded by a grant from the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
Bob Applebaum is a nationally recognized mandolinist with over forty years professional experience in stage, recording, television and film work, including coaching the likes of Nicholas Cage. He has performed and recorded with many of the nation’s greatest acoustic musicians, including Bela Fleck, John Fogarty, Tony Trischka, Richard Greene, Mason Williams, and Sam Bush. In addition to bluegrass he is accomplished in Celtic, swing, bebop, and a variety of American folk styles, not to mention his ongoing work in Middle Eastern and Eastern European music with the Mesto ensemble. Bob’s most recent bluegrass album All the Way Home was praised by Bluegrass Unlimited as " the contemporary bluegrass album of the year.” He is the co-producer with Marty Cutler of "The Bluegrass Band Program" and co-author with Fred Sokolow of "Fretboard Roadmaps for Mandolin.”
A product of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk music scene, Mitch Greenhill recorded two albums for the Prestige label in the 1960's. He performed up and down the east coast, including the Newport Folk Festival, and accompanied Rosalie Sorrels on her seminal album If I Could Be the Rain. His long collaboration with Mayne Smith has included the country rock band Frontier and two CDs as a duo: Storm Coming and Back Where We’ve Never Been. He has produced albums (including a Grammy-winner for Doc Watson), composed and designed sound for theater (including Broadway), and is president of Folklore Productions International, a three-generation family business dedicated to folk and roots music.
Peter Spelman honed his guitar chops in Greenwich Village before moving west to Madison, Wisconsin and then California. During his years as a singer-songwriter in the San Francisco area, he shared bills with the likes of Boz Scaggs, Stan Getz, Bonnie Raitt, George Thorogood, Dave Brubeck, Albert King, Kenny Rankin, Emmylou Harris, and Van Morrison. Southern Californians have fond memories of his residency at O’Mahoney’s in Santa Monica.
String Madness has performed at Merlefest, McCabe’s, Coffee Gallery, Boulevard Music, the Fret House, the Church In Ocean Park, private parties, and regularly at Firefly Bistro.
“Delights, astounds and begs me to listen...repeatedly and often....Together, their six legs straddle a dozen or more source genres from the US plains. mountains and deltas to the British Isles, further afield.... Their improvisations weave a wide ranging tapestry with a sometimes brash, sometimes gossamer texture that is ever beguiling. Over and over recognizable fragments of motif and melody appear and fade into the background....We want more.”
Dave Wilson - Berkshire Fine Arts
“It wasn't just good, and it wasn't just great; it was spectacular.
At those memorable moments one gets a glimmer of how tight a band String Madness is, and how intensely though nonverbally they communicate one to another. Their concert was a master class in group dynamics for trios, or any other assemblage, with many of the songs from their debut CD, String Madness.
One of many highlights was Mitch Greenhill’s recreation of Django Reinhardt’s classic Nuages... simply glorious....
But String Madness wasn’t done. They reached all the way back to the Baroque to re-imagine one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos for guitar (and mandolin) as it might have been performed by—I kid you not—Bo Diddley! Performed in two seamless parts, one first heard Mitch Greenhill making Doc’s 12-string sound like a harpsichord, and then Bo Diddley’s signature tempo....
Music of this quality deserves to be celebrated and supported....See them now, folks, before they’re at Disney Concert Hal”
Ross Altman - FolkWorks
“Packed into this back room at Westwood Music were around 50 of the luckiest people in Los Angeles this afternoon. They'd come to hear their
friends jam. What they got was a rhythmic wonder, a sonic lollapalooza, a mystical kinship of passions, a mind-meld of great empathy, a riveting feast of music. All on 2 guitars and a mandolin.
This music trio, modestly called "String Madness", seems to break the mold with each performance. They swing, they dig deep, they dazzle, and they mean it all, from Bach to Bop. These three men
are musical magnets. They attract - no, they devour - the essence of all that's fit to be played on these instruments, and serve it hot and beautifully prepared to their listeners. Not to be missed!”
Los Angeles Wicked Good Newspaper
