Norman Blake
The Pickin' Parlor, Nashville, Tennessee, 1975

Blake has long been one of our best and busiest traditional musicians. He played in Johnny Cash's band in the 1960s, backed up Bob Dylan on his influential Nashville Skyline album (1969), teamed with the late John Hartford, Vassar Clements, Randy Scruggs, and Tut Taylor in some of the most innovative recordings combining "old" and "new" bluegrass in the 1970s, and was featured on two of the most influential collections albums—Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" (1972), and the more recent film soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou? (2001). Over the years, Blake has emerged as a solo act and in duet with his cellist (and fiddling) wife Nancy, sporting an understated voice to match his unadorned guitar style.