Mike Compton
Traditional Bluegrass
Contemporary Bluegrass
Mike Compton is one of the foremost living interpreters of Bill Monroe's mandolin style, a founding member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band and the mandolinist whose Monroe-inflected playing helped shape the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and its bluegrass revival.
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- Born February 29, 1956 (leap day) in Meridian, Mississippi; took up mandolin in his teens after starting on trombone and guitar.
- Met Bill Monroe at the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival in 1975; spent the following decades developing one of the most idiomatic Monroe-style mandolin approaches of his generation.
- Co-founded the Nashville Bluegrass Band in 1984 with Pat Enright, Alan O'Bryant, and Mark Hembree; took a hiatus after a tour-bus accident injured Hembree, then rejoined NBB in 2000.
- Toured and recorded with John Hartford in the mid-1990s; recorded with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1995.
- Selected by T Bone Burnett for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and tour in 2000; the album won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002 and sold approximately seven million copies, sparking a roots-music revival.
- Hosts the annual Monroe Mandolin Camp in Nashville and tours internationally with Joe Newberry as the Compton & Newberry duo and with the Helen Highwater Stringband.
- IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year nominee in 2001 and 2002; appears on more than 120 recordings.
- Honored by Mississippi State Senate Resolution No. 45 (2002) for his contributions to bluegrass music.
