Charlie Leet

He was in the band by the time it recorded Long Journey at Sound Space in Yellow Springs, Ohio, released by Rounder in 1991, with Thomason on mandolin, Suzanne Thomas on lead guitar and clawhammer banjo, Dan Russell on banjo and steel guitar and Mary Jo Leet on rhythm guitar. The same group made Just for the Record (1993) at Sound Space, on which Leet is credited with fiddle as well as bass and sings the baritone part in the band’s trios and quartets on songs such as “I’ve Lived a Lot in My Time” and “A Distant Land to Roam.”

With Bill Evans on banjo, the band recorded Live! At Last at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Massachusetts, on 13 April 1995, and Rounder released it in 1996; Leet plays bass and sings the bass part, as he does on Memories That Bless and Burn (1999), six of whose sixteen songs are sung a cappella, and Hand Hewn (2001), on which the band was Thomason, Bobby Maynard on banjo and fiddle, Thomas, Brian Aldridge on guitar, Mary Jo Leet on vocals and Leet on bass. His last album with the band was the double Live at the Newburyport Firehouse, recorded at the Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 15 November 2002 and released in January 2005, with Russell back on banjo and Adam McIntosh on lead guitar.