CC BY-SA 2.0

A mandolinist who fused bluegrass, jazz improvisation, and folk into a genre he named "dawg music," expanding what the instrument was assumed capable of outside its traditional string-band role. He founded the label Acoustic Disc to release his own recordings alongside those of other acoustic musicians working outside the commercial mainstream, and in 2023 was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in Owensboro, Kentucky.