Quickdraw Homegrown Music 
New Acoustic / Homegrown Alternative Bluegrass
Randy Jones - bass * Kent Taylor - mandolin * Mark
Merryman - guitar * Kurt Hunsinger - banjo
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Quickdraw Homegrown Music used to include Randy
Jones on bass guitar, Kent Taylor on mandolin, Jerry Grannell on
fiddle and guitar, and Mike Jagel on banjo and guitar.
Quickdraw Homegrown Music isn't the band it used to be. It is "reformed"
and "refocused". The founding members are Randy Jones on bass
guitar and Kent Taylor on mandolin. They are joined by Mark
Merryman on guitar and Kurt Hunsinger on banjo.
Randy Jones plays electric and acoustic bass guitar, sings high harmonies,
and writes the original music featured by the band. Although born in
Ohio, Randy's family moved to Colorado when he was five,
thus making him an official "almost Colorado native." He first
met Kent in high school where they started playing rock and roll music
together.
Kent Taylor is a genuine, bona fide, for real Colorado native. He also
sings lead and tenor harmony under Randy, all the while strumming on
the mandolin. Kent explains, "I wanted to be in a rock and roll
band from the day I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan." He was also
inspired by the corps of urban folk singers like John Denver, Gordon
Lightfoot, et al. Kent says he "picked up the mandolin to get away
from the guitar." One day Kent ran into Randy playing in a bar.
As it happened Kent was looking for a bass player for what was to become
Quickdraw Homegrown Music, and the two became life-long picking pals. They also became
brothers-in-law.
Mark Merryman
recently won the Swallow
Hill flatpicking guitar contest. In addition to playing blistering
guitar licks, he is a prolific and talented songwriter, and sings leads
and harmonies. He is well-grounded in bluegrass, as Fret Knot fans know,
but also enjoys the rhythmic and melodic changes of New Orleans Funk,
blues, and Caribbean styles. He is lead singer and songwriter for the
Canyon Rats.
Kurt Hunsinger started playing banjo during his High School days in
Michigan. He later studied music at Saginaw Valley State College. Looking
for adventure , he packed up and moved to Colorado. During all this
excitement, Kurt developed his own style of banjo that is second to
none. His melodic leads and fills will immediately get your attention.
When you add his lead and harmony vocals, and his love for Bluegrass,
you can't help but come back for more.
Profile by Bill Donaldson, from Pow'r
Pickin', September, 2001
Kent Taylor, Randy Jones, Mike Jagel, and Jerry Grannell have been
together as Quickdraw Homegrown Music nigh on to five years, though each of them has
been kicking around the Denver CO bluegrass world for 20 years or more.
Indeed the roots of Quickdraw Homegrown Music were formed by Kent and Randy 23 years
ago as a country band. Later, with the addition of a banjo player, the
band metamorphosed into what it is today. The challenge then is to describe
just what Quickdraw Homegrown Music has become.
While listening to Quickdraw Homegrown Music, one is likely to hear nontraditional
things like Motown's Love Potion #9, or Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time,
or Lyle Lovett's Bear Song, or even I've Just Seen A Face from the Beatles.
And one decides Quickdraw Homegrown Music isn't stretching the envelope, they wadded
it up and tossed it out completely. So it's best to forget about labels
and just enjoy good music played well in the bluegrass style. For the
record, Quickdraw Homegrown Music bills themselves as "new acoustic / homegrown
alternative bluegrass." That ought to be good enough.
Randy Jones plays electric bass guitar, sings high harmonies, and writes
the original music featured by the band. Although born in Ohio, Randy's
family moved to Colorado when he was five, thus making him an official
"almost native." He first met Kent in high school where they
started playing rock and roll music together. Randy keeps busy with
a day job dispatching long haul truckers.
Kent Taylor is a genuine, bona fide, for real Colorado native. He also
sings lead and tenor harmony under Randy, all the while strumming on
the mandolin. Kent explains, "I wanted to be in a rock and roll
band from the day I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan." He was also
inspired by the corps of urban folk singers like John Denver CO, Gordon
Lightfoot, et al. Kent says he "picked up the mandolin to get away
from the guitar." One day Kent ran into Randy playing in a bar.
As it happened Kent was looking for a bass player for what was to become
Quickdraw Homegrown Music, and the two became life-long picking pals. They also became
brothers-in-law, but that's a story for another time and place. When
he's not mandolining, Kent teaches art at Scott Carpenter Middle School.
Mike Jagel (pronounced Yay-gull, y'all) hails originally from New England
(as the token Yankee of the group) where he was "raised by folk
singers and occasionally loaned out to wandering Gypsies." Mike
was naturally absorbed in music from the beginning. His parents were
folk singers and his grandfather was lead tenor at the Met. "It
was either folk music or opera," he says. Mike once played the
role of Uncle Ernie in the rock opera, Tommy. By day, Mike is a mild
mannered teacher of music and PE at West Jefferson Elementary School
where he has the only classroom in Jefferson County with a picture of
Bill Monroe on the wall. "Right next to Beethoven, Mozart, and
Jerry Garcia," he explains. But at night, Mike plays banjo, guitar,
and sings the low-down bass parts in Quickdraw Homegrown Music. Mike joined the group
six years ago.
The multi-talented Jerry "Stickboy" Grannell is the second
real live Colorado native of the band having been spawned in Evergreen
and lived most of his life there since. Jerry has been around music
as long as he can remember and started playing in the first grade. He
once sold vegetables to save enough money to buy a brand new Silvertone
guitar from Wards. His father had a folk singing group back in the halcyon
days of coffeehouses and Beatniks. Jerry was performing before the public
at his uncle's coffeehouse, the Gruffy Bird in Central City, long before
his voice became the rich baritone we hear today. Or as Jerry describes
his voice, "Not squeaky, like Randy." Jerry plays guitar and
fiddle with the band.
Before hooking up with Randy and Kent in Quickdraw Homegrown Music, Mike and Jerry
teamed in 1974 and headed the Bear Mountain Ramblers based in Evergreen.
Jerry says, "None of us are superstar instrumentalists, so we
stress our singing and harmonies and timing."
Those of us who have heard Quickdraw Homegrown Music play will tell you Jerry is being
way too modest about their instrumental abilities. Jerry himself does
a real mean rendition of Blackberry Blossom on the guitar. And he's
known to be proficient on a cello, viola, or piano as well, not to mention
his unique ability to play a "McNally Strum Stick," which
he describes as a deformed balalaika with three strings played in the
key of G. This kind of versatility is rare indeed.
Together, these boys are good enough to have won the title of West
Central US Semi-Final Champion in the Pizza Hut International Showdown
in 1997, and they finished third in the finals in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Mike describes what sets Quickdraw Homegrown Music apart, "We like to use low
baritone or bass harmonies unlike traditional bluegrass bands. But we'll
try almost anything."
"But we do play a lot of traditional bluegrass, too," Kent
adds. "And we're looking for work."
Randy says, "We can play rock and roll (in a bluegrass style),
folk music, Reggae."
According to Kent, "We won't say no to a good song. We do Crosby,
Stills & Nash. We try to have a good mix of hard core bluegrass,
traditional cowboy -- anything that's a good song is fair game."
Jerry tells of how he fell in love with bluegrass. "I was drawn
to the Rocky Mountain Bluegrass Festival. I went to Winfield in 1974
and have been to every one since."
Mike says, "Yeah, I've been to every RockyGrass. Every year. I
used to listen to WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. Earl Scruggs was
the way banjo should sound. And there were all the Newport Festivals
when I was a kid. I heard Bill Monroe at RockyGrass." (There's
a moment of silence following Monroe's name.)
"Back then we used to call it 'hillbilly' music," Jerry says.
Kent adds, "Telluride used to be like Mecca for bluegrass. Then
I heard New Grass Revival in Breckenridge in '78 or '79. They were the
original jam band. That was it for me. But there was a lot of tradition
back then. The Rocky Mountain Festival wouldn't allow electric bass
on stage in the old days."
"Hot Rize opened the door," Mike explains. "Nick (Forster
of Hot Rize) was the first electric bass player at Rocky Mountain."
Kent says, "I think the best thing about bluegrass music is the
family feeling, not like any other. And you rub shoulders with everybody."
"Bluegrass music is one of the most alive styles of music there
is," Mike points out. "It's growing. It's changing. It absolutely
cannot become static."
Jerry adds, "And the youth movement has been really good for us.
There's a lot of young people really getting into it and taking it other
places."
It's been a long strange bluegrass trip for the Quickdraw Homegrown Music boys.
"Remember chewing dirt at Adams County Fairgrounds," asks
Mike, "and the model airplanes and the horses riding around?"
Jerry admits, "We never went to bed before the sun came up. Played
music all night long."
Kent laughs, "Yeah, I remember one time the Banjo Bullies came
around and we were playing the Hand Jive. We had played everything there
was and were wondering what was left to play. Hand Jive."
Randy explains the most critical factor in their continuing success.
"Our families are supportive. Without our wives and kids putting
up with the stuff that we do, it wouldn't happen."
"But it's a little tough," Jerry laughs, "when at the
end of the year the wife says, 'You played 130 gigs and only made $212.'"
"This is not a job," Randy explains. "It's not a hobby.
This is a lifestyle. The family has to be part of it. I think if I wasn't
playing music I'd be dead."
"I can't take my wife to a concert," admits Jerry, "and
just sit and listen because I'm too critical."
"Yeah," Mike adds, "you have to be driven to do it.
And it helps to be single."
Of their first CD, Stay Tuned, released in 1997, Kent says, "We
learned all the possibilities for getting into trouble in a digital
studio." They found digital toys and gadgets such as the "Gold
Foil / Surf Banjo patch" irresistible and used it on a multitracked
version of June Apple. "But it turned out to be a great CD."
In 2000, Quickdraw Homegrown Music avoided the studio for their second CD, entitled
Saloon, by recording live at the Little Bear in Evergreen.
Mike concludes, "I'd just like to go four days without hearing
one . . . banjo joke." Why are there so many banjo jokes? "Banjo
envy!" he snaps. "Many are called but few can do it."
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