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Dan Crary

Recording Artist · Active 1970–present · Kansas City · Also a musician
Classic Bluegrass Contemporary Bluegrass

Dan Crary is one of the most influential flatpicking guitarists in bluegrass, a player who helped re-establish the acoustic guitar as a lead solo voice on equal footing with the banjo and fiddle. From his landmark 1970 solo album through decades of touring with Byron Berline and John Hickman, his precise, fast, and melodically clear style shaped how a generation of pickers approached the instrument.

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  • Born September 29, 1939, in Kansas City, Kansas, he began playing guitar at age 12 and pursued formal religious study — Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, the University of Kansas, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville — a background that earned him the enduring nickname “Deacon Dan.”
  • In 1968 he co-founded the Bluegrass Alliance in Louisville, an important progressive band of the era, and worked the regional circuit while completing his graduate studies.
  • His debut solo record, Bluegrass Guitar (1970) on American Heritage Music, was among the first bluegrass albums built entirely around the flatpicked acoustic guitar as lead instrument, and it became a foundational text for aspiring pickers.
  • Building on the innovations of Doc Watson, Crary pushed flatpicking toward greater speed, cleaner articulation, and more adventurous melodic phrasing, becoming one of the style’s defining modern voices.
  • He recorded Byron Berline and Sundance (1976) with fiddler Byron Berline and banjoist John Hickman, and followed with the acclaimed solo album Lady’s Fancy (1977) on Rounder Records.
  • In the late 1970s he formed the trio Berline-Crary-Hickman (BCH) with Berline and Hickman, an instrumental powerhouse that toured internationally and recorded a string of albums for Sugar Hill Records.
  • BCH expanded into the band California, which won the IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year award three consecutive years, in 1992, 1993, and 1994.
  • His solo catalog for Sugar Hill includes Guitar (1983), Take a Step Over (1989), and Thunderation (1991), showcasing both his blistering technique and his original tunes.
  • In 1986 Taylor Guitars built the DCSM (Dan Crary Signature Model) dreadnought around his specifications — a louder, more responsive cutaway design that was the company’s first-ever artist signature guitar.
  • A longtime instructor and writer, he authored an influential flatpicking column in Frets magazine during the 1980s and taught countless players through workshops and instructional materials.
  • Away from music he built a parallel academic career as a professor of speech communication at California State University, Fullerton.
  • He later helped create Primal Twang: The Legacy of the Guitar (2006), a concert production celebrating the instrument’s history, and has continued to perform and teach as an elder statesman of the flatpicking tradition.

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