Album Notes

Two separate paths guided musicians Billy Bright and Bryn Davies to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston in the fall of 1995. Bryn, a native of Livermore, CA, had come to Berklee on a jazz scholarship to study bass, while Billy had come up from El Paso, TX with mandolin on the brain, only to end up studying the guitar, as Berklee had no mandolin program at the time. The two might never have met except for the fact that Bryn lived in the apartment below Billy and his roommate Brian Smith. Within a month of meeting, the trio was playing bluegrass in Boston as the Two High String Band and a musical partnership was born.

After moving to Austin in Sept '97 and while on tour with Two High, Billy and Bryn crossed paths frequently with Peter Rowan at festivals and other shows. A couple of call-out gigs later, they became fixtures of Peter's Texas Trio in the fall of 1999. "Peter is one of the most influential singers AND songwriters out there and I have always loved that he could be a bluegrass boy, but not in the oppressing sense! I've been a fan at least ever since I knew who he was...maybe even before," says Billy.

So began an immersion into the world of red hot acoustic players that found Billy and Bryn touring with Tony Rice, Vassar Clements, and Peter Rowan, as well as playing with such luminaries as Guy Clark, David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Norman Blake, and many others.

After years of performing together the musical partnership between Billy and Bryn grew to become a committed partnership and they were married on February 17, 2001 in Fischer, TX>

In December 200 the couple spent several days recording with bluegrass legends Tony Rice, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, Danny Barnes and fiddler extraordinaire Eamon McLoughlin. The result is a captivating 10-song collection of bluegrass and an assortment of other genres infused tunes titled Billy and Bryn Bright available on Blue Corn Records. We chose to record a bluegrass instrumental CD because the instruments are the focus of the songs," says Billy. "I think what we have to offer this genre of music is new songs with a somewhat distinctive sound. There are lots of people out there playing really great bluegrass. There are also a lot of people breaking the boundaries. We are somewhere in the middle. I have never been the instrumentalist who could switch styles at the drop of a hat, nor have I been an extremely developed bluegrass mandolinist," says Billy.

"Billy doesn't write the typical bluegrass instrumental. He is influenced by many genres and that's what makes his songs so unique," says Bryn.

Hard at work, the couple continues to tour with Rowan and Rice, are frequently seen with Caroline Herring, still do several shows per year with the Two High String Band, and have been recently playing with Eamon McLoughlin and Geoff Union as the Billy Bright Band. "I suppose if Bryn and I were in one band it would make things a little less complicated, but we know too many good musicians that we want to play with," explains Billy.