Dave Carroll

He played guitar for about ten years before he took up the banjo. His father had bought one, and on a visit home during his first year at the University of Minnesota Duluth he picked it up, took it back to school and practiced it in his closet so as not to bother his roommates; applause at open-mic nights in Duluth encouraged him to keep at it. Trampled by Turtles was the first band he ever played in. He joined after hearing Dave Simonett and the mandolinist Erik Berry play at a Duluth brewpub and offering to bring his banjo. Simonett, who had never played bluegrass, built the band from such newcomers, with Tim Saxhaug on bass; the fiddler Ryan Young joined in 2007 and the cellist Eamonn McLain in 2014.

The band’s early albums, Songs from a Ghost Town (2004), Blue Sky and the Devil (2005) and Trouble (2007), were followed by Duluth (2008), which includes the traditional “Shenandoah” and reached number eight on the Billboard bluegrass chart. Speaking in 2010, Carroll said the band’s fast tempos had grown gradually from playing the same songs night after night, and he credited its following to touring out of state from early on. Later albums include Life Is Good on the Open Road (2018) and Alpenglow (2022), both number ones on the bluegrass chart, and in 2018 the band also released a single of “Wildflowers.”