Tyler Grant

Grant grew up in Jamul, east of San Diego, on land his family had farmed for four generations. He began in rock and reggae bands around the San Diego beaches, came to bluegrass through his father’s record collection and through Old and in the Way, and studied classical guitar, earning a degree in music performance from the California Institute of the Arts. Hearing the flatpickers Tony Rice and David Grier turned him toward bluegrass guitar.

Around 2003 he moved to Nashville, where he toured with Abigail Washburn, Adrienne Young and Little Sadie, and April Verch. His instrumental album In the Light (2006), issued by Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, included “Good Morning, Mr. Railroad Man,” “Grey Eagle” and his own title track. He won the flatpick guitar contest at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield in September 2008, entered from Nashville.

From Nashville he joined the Drew Emmitt Band, led by Leftover Salmon’s Drew Emmitt, and in 2007 he was a founding member of the Emmitt-Nershi Band, which brought Emmitt together with Bill Nershi of the String Cheese Incident. He played guitar on Emmitt’s album Long Road (Compass, July 2008). The work drew him to Colorado, where he has lived since 2009, first in Lyons and then in Fort Collins. In 2010 he formed Grant Farm, a band that mixed jam-band and honky-tonk styles and on which he moved to electric guitar; it toured steadily and made five albums, among them Kiss the Ground and Broke in Two (June 2019), before going on hiatus in 2020. From 2015 to 2018 he hosted the Meeting on the Mountain live radio-style broadcast in Fort Collins.

In 2018 he and the flatpicker Robin Kessinger released the duet album Kanawha County Flatpicking. After the pandemic Grant took up outdoor leadership and work as a whitewater raft guide, and his solo album Flatpicker (March 2025) draws on that time outdoors. He issues his records on his own label, Grant Central Records, and teaches flatpicking at camps and online.