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development of contemporary mandolin playing and should be seen in the context of a great continuum ofwhich we both are, humbly, a part. We all owe him a huge debt!Don Stiernberg on Jethro Burns LegacyYou produced several of Jethro’s best recordings, and in fact, most of the few from his hugediscography that actually are about mandolin playing. Whose idea was it to make Tea For One? Backto Back? Did Jethro ever comment about getting the opportunity to showcase his mandolin playing inthose contexts? Any other recollections of those sessions and the associated gigs and hangs?The Dawg made it all happen. Lucky for us he saved all of these original tracks. He made a master ofeverything Jethro and I recorded when the first two CDs were released in 1995 and in 1997) and he kept allof the songs we cut that had never been made public. Good thing because the original analog tapes have justabout turned to dust. We found out when he was was having trouble finding one of the songs and he said tome, “you have the masters, can you find it?” I took the tapes to the studio that I work with here in Chicago.They tried to play the originals and that’s how I discovered they’re history. If not for his saving these wewould have lost these songs and wouldn’t be having this conversation.The day I met Tiny Moore (at Tiny Moore Music in Sacramento) and found out that he and Jethro had nevermet, I drove straight to the Kaleidoscope Records office on my way home and asked them if I could putTiny and Jethro together and record the album which became Back To Back. Fortunately, they were veryenthusiastic about the idea and allowed me to hire the stellar rhythm section of Ray Brown, Shelly Manneand Eldon Shamblin to back them up. I budgeted four 3-hour sessions for the project but they were done inthree! It was a real joy to experience — they all were 59 years old at the time and I’ll never forget that Tinywas in tears at the end. Both he and Jethro were blown away by that rhythm section and the fact that a recordcompany cared enough to pull out all the stops! It was also a thrill for me personally to join them on a fewcuts which featured three mandolins.Tea For One was also my idea, inspired by having Jethro as a solo opening act for the quintet. Thatrecord was recorded live (with an audience) in the studio to augment a few solo studio sessions without anaudience. Again Kaleidoscope Records stepped up to the plate and made it possible. There were quite a fewlive performances with Tiny and Jethro and my quintet, including The Great American Music Hall in SanFrancisco, the Paul Masson Winery in Saratoga and the Austin City Limits TV show, which also includedthe great Johnny Gimble. They were all incredible musical experiences that I will never forget. It was a greatprivilege to be in the right place at the right time!Did Jethro ever say anything funny to you?No never. He was absolutely humorless . NOT!Was he gigging during the final months when these cuts were recorded?There was a bit of a slowdown in terms of the gigs but not much. The last time he played in public was justa few months before he passed. His brother-in-law Chet Atkins was in Chicago for a gig at Orchestra Hall.Chet invited Jethro to be the opening act knowing his circumstance and it seemed planned this would be anice last appearance for him in front of a large audience. He came out and played solo in his style, told jokes,made fun of Chet, and I believe they played some numbers together at the end of the show. I don’t thinkanyone in the audience knew he was ill. The nature of his illness was such that he had cancer for three yearsbefore it took him and he didn’t want people to know because he didn’t want it to interrupt his work. Heplayed great right up to the end.What mandolins and guitars were used on these recordings?David Grisman told us his side of the project. What was it like from your perspective?What’s it like for you to listen to this music 25 years later?Because I was so close to the project and so close to Jethro there’s a lot of emotion in it for me. For thelongest time I had a difficult time listening to the CDs and master tapes. It made me sad, but now after allthese years with the high definition and remastering I’m having this revelation like, “Oh my God, this stuffwas really GOOD!” I hadn’t heard the tunes, the so called “leftover tracks” in years. Hearing Jethro’s ideasagain with a fresh set of ears after all this time, that’s one of the things that really makes this exciting for me.He covered a lot of territory on the mandolin. What a brilliant improviser.What was Jethro’s mood like during these sessions?Each time we got together there would be a little of a warm-up period but that was part of the purpose ofthe project: he wanted to live and feel alive with his music in spite of what he was dealing with. He knew howmuch energy and strength he had and he’d pour it all out and when it was time, you knew it was over. It waslike his lessons which were never measured in time. He wasn’t a clock watcher. He’d get his pick and stickit in the strings above the nut and say, “Alright” with a smile. That was signal the lesson was over and thatwould occur at the end of these sessions. And don’t forget, I was playing guitar and hanging on for dear life!We were really flying through this stuff.listen to the record in a booth before you bought it so he found one of the Homer & Jethro jazz records inthe store and had Dave listen to it. Dave listened to Jethro’s first solo, smiled and said, “Ah, you like Djangojust like me!” He used to play “Swing ’39” and “Nuages”, but he’d also pull out some lesser known ones likeHe played a bunch of them on guitar too.It must have been a proud moment for you when Homer & Jethro were named to the Country MusicHall of Fame.I was lucky enough to witness their posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame on October4, 2001. I was in Nashville for IBMA when the ceremony was held and Homer’s son, Trent Haynes, was kindenough to share an extra ticket to the ceremony. I really wanted to be there because that was one of the thingsJethro said was his only regret in music. He used to say to me, “Donnie, I wish we would have made it intothe Country Music Hall of Fame.” It was great to finally see the dream realized.At the time Jethro was mostly playing a new Gibson F-5L. Of course I wanted him to use the famous redtwo-point but it only made it onto a few cuts. I don’t think we used any others. I was using a late 1940sGibson L-5 and that’s on most of the tracks but I also used a 1938 Epiphone Emperor. It’s interesting thatfor both guitar and mandolin we all think about how critical the instrument is, what kind of picks, what kindof strings. All these years later — even when the first two CDs of this came out — I can’t tell which guitaror mandolin is being used. For whatever it’s worth, Jethro always used those little thin Fender teardropguitar picks.What else would you like to share about the release of this project?We were surprised to see the inclusion of Django Reinhardt’s “Tears” among the new cuts. We wereaware he was an admirer of Django but the selection of this one and the unique arrangement caughtus off guard.His style of playing has something to offer just about anyone interested in mandolin playing. The ideasare subtle and he made things sound easy. He definitely made it look easy and because of that it’s easy tomiss how difficult some of it was. If you try to play or transcribe some of his music you quickly find out hecontributed a lot to the art of mandolin playing. One of the things David said when we released the first twoCDs was, “man, his whole vocabulary is on here!” And it’s true.Listeners will get ample displays of Jethro’s unique virtuosity. From the mandolin player standpoint, whathe did with chord voicings, chord-melody and swinging single-note improvised melody lines was completelyinnovative and unsurpassed to this day.Django was his hero. There were a few cats regularly mentioned as influences but Django was always themost frequent. Another one was Dave Apollon. When Jethro met Dave for the first time one of the thingsthey bonded over was their mutual love of Django. They ran into each other by accident at a record store inLas Vegas in the early 60s. Jethro’s story was he introduced himself to Dave. It was in the day when you couldAll these years later I’m realizing what strikes me hearing these cuts better than ever before is that this wasmusic he wanted to play. He was playing it the way he wanted to play it and it wasn’t a commercial project.He was doing this just for the love of the music and his wanting to impart his wisdom about the mandolinto future generations. It was like a gift from him. I would hope people take that into account when theylisten to it.

Gibson L-5 and that’s on most of the tracks but I also used a 1938 Epiphone Emperor. It’s interesting that for both guitar and mandolin we all think about how critical the instrument is, what kind of picks, what kind of strings. All these years later — even when the first two CDs of t