Go to → Mike Compton

From the album, "RARE AND FINE-UNCOMMON TUNES OF BILL MONROE" Mike Compton, likely the most dedicated student of Bill Monroe's music over the past 50 years, was uniquely qualified to animate a set of rarely heard and unreleased instrumentals by the Father of Bluegrass. That's the story behind Compton's new album, Rare & Fine, set for release March 4, 2022. These thirteen tracks, all but one composed by Monroe himself, were culled from the large collection of hand-traded CDRs, cassette tapes and videos that Compton has built over his career. The songs are brought to life by a start band of Nashville's finest acoustic musicians. Stunning triple fiddles come from Michael Cleveland, Laura Orshaw, and Shad Cobb. Jeremy Stephens plays guitar. Russ Carson plays banjo. And Mike Bub plays bass. Mike Compton leads on mandolin. The musicians gathered at the famed Cowboy Arms Hotel & Recordings Spa in Nashville, itself a symbol of renewal now that it's been rebuilt atop the house where the great producer and songwriter Cowboy Jack Clement made it a hang for superstars, before it burned in a 2011 fire. There, working with recording engineers Mark Howard and Cameron Davidson, the musicians worked up fresh arrangements to these instrumentals Compton curated from across Monroe's career. This is the first release from 13 unrecorded Bill Monroe tunes (the secret lost tapes) that Compton compiled into a spectacular album, Rare & Fine-Uncommon Tunes of Bill Monroe. Compton had some old tapes from Monroe floating around for years and most of these songs weren't even written down anywhere. "It didn't really become important to do a project of them until probably the last half of dozen years of so. I got to thinking there needs to be some record of them because people are forgetting about them and there are new generations of people coming along that have never heard of these songs because they had never been recorded. I think they are an important part of Monroe's legacy," Compton explained. "Orange Blossom Breakdown", the first of two single tracks being released ahead of the album's March 4th release, was sourced from a rough-sounding tape likely made by a fan off the radio, of Monroe playing the Grand Ole Opry in the 1940's. "I was drawn to it because I've never heard him do anything quite like it, and I've never heard it since," Compton says. "It's a very unusual arrangement for Monroe. It had to be on this project" This entire project is the work of a detective, a historian, and a master musician. "I hope you enjoy the sounds included within these covers, " Compton writes.