Hit & Run Bluegrass 
...Hard Drivin' Bluegrass
2005 SPBGMA Band Contest Winners
2003 Telluride Band Contest Winners
2002 RockyGrass Winners
Ricky Keen - Dobro * John Frazier - mandolin * Steve Roy - bass
* Rebecca Frazier - guitar * Larry Gangi - banjo
Contact:
Hit & Run Bluegrass
It’s rare that a three-year-old band can claim to have performed
on the stages of Telluride Bluegrass Festival, High Sierra Music Festival,
Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival, Rockygrass Bluegrass Festival, Blue
Ridge Harvest Fest, Bean Blossom, and many other renowned venues from
North Carolina to California. Seldom are young bluegrass bands considered
“authentic” enough to share the stage with the likes of
Jimmy Martin, J.D. Crowe, Hot Rize, Rhonda Vincent, Jerry Douglas, Sam
Bush, Del McCoury, David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, and many other recognized
musicians in bluegrass music—yet also have such a fresh presence
that they are invited to perform alongside popular acts like Creedence
Clearwater Revisited, G. Love & Special Sauce, Galactic, and Medeski
Martin & Wood. And not very often does a band save up their gig
money for a year in order to finance their debut CD, and then sell out
of two thousand copies in less than two months from the back of their
Ford van. These sorts of achievements don’t come easily for any
band, and they certainly didn’t come easily for Hit & Run;
yet somehow, this young group of hard-working Colorado musicians have
carved their own vision and shared these successes.
Hit & Run Bluegrass formed in early 2002 with the mutual desire
to play authentic-yet-modern bluegrass. A few months later, the group
of stellar pickers won the 2002 Rockygrass Band Competition in Lyons
CO. Less than a year after that, Hit & Run took first place at the
2003 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Contest, making them the first
and only band to win both contests. According to Denver CO’s Westword
newspaper, “Something’s got to be up when one bluegrass
band suddenly surpasses all the others. Here in Colorado, that band
is Hit & Run.” Hit & Run went on to take first place at
the 2005 SPBGMA International Band Championships in Nashville, TN—a
rare feat for a first-time competitor.
“Hit & Run is far and away the most exciting up-and-coming
bluegrass act in Colorado right now,” shares Eric Pirritt, Colorado
talent buyer for Boulder CO’s Fox Theatre. “They have been
able to harness a style of bluegrass that has both young kids and older
folks lining up in the streets for their show, each and every time they
play.” Hit & Run’s appeal may be their youthful energy
combined with polished vocals, hot picking, and their contemporary sound,
inspired by the hardcore grooves of Alison Krauss & Union Station,
Blue Highway, and Lonesome River Band, among other favorites. Hit &
Run tastefully interprets standard bluegrass and traditional tunes,
and they skillfully craft original tunes; their music is “handspun
yet motor-driven, a well-oiled machine of sound produced by men and
women with flying fingers and high, lonesome voices.” (Westword)
You may have met these young pickers around campfires at festivals
across the country. Rebecca Hoggan has received national attention in
Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, Bluegrass Unlimited, and Bluegrass Now
for her flatpicking guitar and vocal accomplishments, which are exhibited
on her debut solo release, "Born in East Virginia." John Frazier’s
mandolin virtuosity has garnered him recognition as one of Colorado’s
premier mandolinists; he earned a full merit scholarship to the 2004
Mandolin Symposium. His "classic" sounding original songs
are an integral part of Hit & Run’s repertoire. Banjo champ
Aaron Youngberg brings his rock-solid timing to the band, and 22-year-old
Erin Coats grew up playing the bass since age nine with her banjo-pickin'
dad in Wyoming. Her powerful bluegrass voice has been likened to Emmylou
Harris by reviewers. Dobro virtuoso Todd Livingston has become a first-call
Colorado session player and showman, and his exciting, energetic style
earned his title as 2001 State Dobro Champion. His apprenticeship with
Sally Van Meter is evident through his tasteful interpretation.
Two-time Grammy winner Gene Libbea joined the band as bass-player/singer
from January to June 2003, while Erin Coats took a leave of absence.
His 13-year tenure with the Nashville Bluegrass Band, as well as his
30-plus years as a professional musician, brought priceless ideas and
input to Hit & Run Bluegrass during that time. Says Libbea: “This
band has immense talent. They are destined to go far.”
Hit & Run was invited to record their debut album, “Beauty
Fades,” at Doobie Shea Studios in Boones Mill, Virgnia. Tim Austin,
founder of the Lonesome River Band and Doobie Shea Records, produced
and engineered the project in January 2004. The album was released after
much anticipation on April 2, 2004, and quickly sold two thousand units
in two months. Their 2005 sophomore release, “Without Maps or
Charts,” was co-produced by Rebel Recording Artists Kenny &
Amanda Smith in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has garnered interest
from several national bluegrass record labels.
“It is easy to see why Hit & Run is moving up so quickly—their
music is powerful and their professionalism is amazing for such a young
band,” comments George Gertz, producer of the North
Fork Valley Bluegrass Festival. Hit & Run is quickly gaining
the respect of promoters, fans, musicians, and media across the country.
With an increasingly heavy national touring schedule, this hard drivin'
bluegrass band plans to share as much energy and enthusiasm as possible
in the years to come.
Profile by Bill Donaldson, from Pow'r
Pickin', July, 2003
If you’ve been to a festival recently, you’ve heard the buzz.
Hit & Run. Didn’t they win the band contest at RockyGrass last
year? Yeah, they did. In fine style. And against some really fine competition.
Yeah, they’re pretty good. Young kids, too. Where did they come
from? Out of Boulder CO, I think. Oh, yeah! That’s the band with
John Frazier and that Dobro guy, Todd Livingston. Yep. And Rebecca Hoggan.
Then, too, there are the homonymic Aaron Youngberg and Erin Coats.
And let’s not forget for the first six months of this year there
was the old-timer, Gene Libbea, filling in on bass and making significant
contributions to the growth of the band.
Hit & Run stands as a testament to the value of bluegrass jams.
If you’ve ever sat in on a jam with the hope you might just meet
that certain picker who would be the critical component to help get
your band off the ground, take heart. That is exactly how Hit &
Run came to be. They came together through jamming at festivals.
John Frazier, 23, is originally from Philadelphia. He began playing
mandolin four years ago while attending school at the University of
Colorado. “I was in an a cappella singing group in high school
and church choir and stuff. I played in a progressive rock band.”
You may have heard John singing and picking with Boulder CO’s bluegrass
band, Tall Trees Grove. Today his mandolin and voice help define the
Hit & Run sound.
Aaron Youngberg entered the world in Lincoln, Nebraska twenty-four
years ago, and he plays a banjo. Still and all, he seems like a nice
enough guy. “I moved to Ft Collins and went to CSU. Graduated
in December.” He’s been building his incredible banjo chops
for the past five and a half years. And he writes. Aaron’s original
instrumental, called “Coach’s Stomp,” is featured as
Hit & Run’s cut on the recently released CBMS
CD, Collection of Songs from Bands on Call II.
The Dobro player, from Saginaw, Michigan, is Todd Livingston, who just
turned thirty in June, thus making him the old-timer of the band. Fresh
out of high school, Todd did a stint in the Marines before moving on
to Eastern Michigan University. Todd explains, “I studied English
long enough to tell my parents I was ‘disenrolling’ and not
dropping out.” Then he went on to culinary school at the New England
Culinary Institute in Vermont where he earned an Associates Degree in
Culinary Arts. “I worked in the restaurant industry for probably
ten years.”
Back in Michigan, Todd was playing Dobro and working as an executive
chef. “I decided I didn’t want to be a forty year old wondering
if I ever could have made a living playing music.” Todd grins and
says, “Now I don’t have to wonder.” He says he migrated
from guitar to Dobro around 1997 and got serious about it four years
ago. In 2001, he won the Dobro competition at RockyGrass.
Rebecca’s musical journey began back in east Virginia – Richmond,
to be precise – with piano lessons at the age of five. By twelve
years old, she had picked up the guitar. Rebecca tells us, “I was
always in singing groups. I went to this camp in the Virginia mountains.
We sang Banks of Ohio and stuff like that around the campfire. That
ignited an interest in folk music. I spent a lot of time listening to
Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Mamas and the Papas.”
She was drawn to the harmonies of the music and she developed an ear
for harmony. She reveals how in ninth grade she aspired to be Karen
Carpenter. She outgrew that, though, but goes on to say, “When
I was going to go to college I decided I wanted to be an opera singer.”
However, once in college at the University of Michigan she declared,
“That’s not for me.”
As a sophomore at Michigan, Rebecca joined another band where she was
urged to learn banjo. Seems there was already a plethora of guitars
in the band. “But then,” she says, “they didn’t
like that so they kicked me out.” Where’s the justice?
“In college,” she says, “you have a lot more cross germination
of musical interests with other people. I used to live at the used CD
store. I bought so much random stuff. Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald,
Billie Holliday. I was obsessed with Alison Krauss as well, and I decided
to get into flatpicking, so I signed up for Steve Kaufman’s Flatpicking
Kamp. “That’s when I was blown away by all these guitars.”
With a renewed interest in performing music, she changed her major and
graduated with a BA in Music and Comparative Literature.
After Michigan she went on the Berklee College of Music in Boston to
study jazz guitar and voice.
Rebecca and Todd came to Colorado in the summer of 2000 with the goal
of starting a bluegrass band. “We really wanted to start a band
with people who were our peers,” Rebecca explains. They were looking
for players who weren’t tied down with family or job, because,
as Rebecca says, “We knew how serious we were about it. We wanted
there to be potential to go on the road full time.”
Rebecca does most of the booking and promotion chores, but is quick
to add, Hit & Run is a democratic band. There isn’t one leader.
Everybody has equal say in the creative decisions.
“My name is Erin Coats, twenty one years old, originally from
Cheyenne, Wyoming.” Erin tells how her family moved to Jackson
Hole in her youth. Her dad was a banjo player. She says, “I felt
left out and I wanted to play something, too, so I pointed at the instrument
in the room that turned out to be a bass.” Dad taught her how to
play it (she had to stand on a stool) and she played in her father’s
band for nine years.
She taught bass at a bluegrass camp for kids in Cordova, Alaska for
three summers from 1996 to 1998. Erin says, “I was only fifteen.
I was really nervous because a couple of the kids were older than me.”
Erin explains how she took a leave of absence from Hit & Run for
six months while she went with her parents to Fiji, Somoa, Cambodia,
and Viet Nam to do volunteer work. While Erin was away, Gene Libbea
volunteered to fill the vacancy on bass. Erin grins, “I was afraid
you guys wouldn’t want me back.” She tells how her parents
came to become volunteers. “They decided they didn’t want
to do the tourist thing any more,” she says. “They found a
database in Australia, called Involvement Volunteer (www.volunteering.org.au),
that gave names of organizations that could use volunteers.”
Erin has two years remaining at the University of Wyoming. But until
fall all her attention is focused on Hit & Run.
Focus seems to be the common thread among all of these talented young
pickers. Other obligations have been put on hold while the band works
through the summer. They have gigs booked every weekend this summer.
Part time jobs have been set aside. Rebecca, who has been working recently
with the All Night Honky Tonk All Stars, has put that work on hiatus
while she focuses on the Hit & Run summer schedule. But take heart
you honky tonk fans. Rebecca says, “(The All Night Honky Tonk All
Stars) will be playing in the fall again, and we have a couple gigs
this summer.”
As with all good business plans, Hit & Run has defined objectives.
All agree they want to work to make the band the very best it can be.
That means rehearsals two or three times a week, in spite of being scattered
from Boulder CO to Ft Collins to Laramie. “I don’t want
to be a band,” Todd says, “that doesn’t rehearse. We
have so much love for it”
Erin adds, “We spend a lot of time on every song.”
“We polish something to death,” Rebecca says. “Our main
thing is song selection. We really concentrate on the groove and the
words. The groove is so important. And we stick to modern topics.”
And then there are the business essentials. “We don’t have
a CD to support,” says Rebecca, “and we don’t have a
band vehicle. We’re saving for those two things. We’d really
like to be touring next summer. Nationally, or at least regionally.
We’re building from the inside out. Gaining fans in Colorado.”
Todd adds, “Anybody that wants to donate a band vehicle . . .”
“Or free studio time!” Rebecca laughs. “We know what
our goals are, but we also realize it takes time.”
The business plan calls for recording the CD in November for release
in April in time for next year’s festival season.
They started with a common vision for what they wanted to play. They
describe their sound as a more contemporary bluegrass akin to Kane’s
River and Alison Krauss. Rebecca expands, “We sound traditional,
but we are more contemporary in our groove and our feel and our song
selection.”
Todd says, “I think arrangement has a lot to do with what separates
us from something being contemporary or more traditional. I think we
tend to put a little more time into arranging.”
Gene Libbea first heard Hit & Run while he was judging the band
competition at RockyGrass in 2002. He was so impressed with the group,
he met with them immediately afterward and arranged to become a coach
and mentor for the band. He has produced the four tracks for their demo
CD and will continue to work with them to complete a full CD.
While Erin was volunteering in Asia, Gene stepped in to play bass.
“It was a fabulous opportunity to analyze the band from the inside.
They have become so much better in six months.”
Rebecca Frazier (nee Hoggan) 
Rebecca plays flatpick guitar and mandolin and sings. In addition to
Hit & Run, Rebecca also sings and plays mandolin in the All Night
Honky Tonk All Stars with Danny Shafer (guitar, vocals), Greg Schochet
(Telecaster, vocals), Jim Sullivan (bass) and Jason Pawlina (drums).
She is a Virginia native.
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