Brian Godchaux
Brian has been playing the fiddle since he was eight years old. He grew up in a musical family living in the shadow of Mt. Diablo, on the east side of San Francisco Bay. He first encountered Sandy in late 1964 while Sandy was playing electric guitar in an R&B band with Brian’s older brother Keith in the Godchaux family garage. Over the years, Brian has performed with such artists as Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks and The Heart of Gold Band. He is currently writing a biography of his brother Keith.
Sandy Rothman
Sandy likewise grew up on the east side of the Bay, encountering country music and bluegrass in Berkeley during the late ’50s/early ’60s Folk Revival. Before the band with Keith he played in one of Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass bands. He then toured the summer of 1964 with Bill Monroe, one of their musical heroes. He reunited with Garcia in the late ’80s, forming the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band.
The Project
In the early 1990s Brian and Sandy met again and have been playing traditional tunes on fiddle & banjo since then. In 2013 they embarked on a recording project completed at the end of 2014 and have captured 13 tunes with nothing but fiddle & banjo. This duet form was known well in early Appalachian communities; after the 1940s advent of bluegrass it was preserved by some bands as a break in the show. In that setting, tunes were generally abbreviated to a couple of minutes. Brian and Sandy decided to play them longer...thus some of the tracks on The Red Fiddle & the Silver Banjo run to 5 minutes or more.
Brian has been playing the fiddle since he was eight years old. He grew up in a musical family living in the shadow of Mt. Diablo, on the east side of San Francisco Bay. He first encountered Sandy in late 1964 while Sandy was playing electric guitar in an R&B band with Brian’s older brother Keith in the Godchaux family garage. Over the years, Brian has performed with such artists as Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks and The Heart of Gold Band. He is currently writing a biography of his brother Keith.
Sandy Rothman
Sandy likewise grew up on the east side of the Bay, encountering country music and bluegrass in Berkeley during the late ’50s/early ’60s Folk Revival. Before the band with Keith he played in one of Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass bands. He then toured the summer of 1964 with Bill Monroe, one of their musical heroes. He reunited with Garcia in the late ’80s, forming the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band.
The Project
In the early 1990s Brian and Sandy met again and have been playing traditional tunes on fiddle & banjo since then. In 2013 they embarked on a recording project completed at the end of 2014 and have captured 13 tunes with nothing but fiddle & banjo. This duet form was known well in early Appalachian communities; after the 1940s advent of bluegrass it was preserved by some bands as a break in the show. In that setting, tunes were generally abbreviated to a couple of minutes. Brian and Sandy decided to play them longer...thus some of the tracks on The Red Fiddle & the Silver Banjo run to 5 minutes or more.