Glenn Lawson

Lawson played with the Bluegrass Alliance, the Louisville band, until 1975, when he left to join J. D. Crowe; Vince Gill took his place. With the New South he played guitar and sang lead, with Gaudreau singing tenor and Crowe baritone, on You Can Share My Blanket (Rounder 0096, 1977), recorded at Pete’s Place in Nashville with Jack Solomon on rhythm guitar, Bobby Slone on fiddle and a country rhythm section of piano, steel guitar, electric bass and drums. It included Gram Parsons and Bob Buchanan’s “Hickory Wind.” Gaudreau later said that when Lawson came into the band “some of the material just leaned” toward the more commercial sound Crowe wanted.

From about 1979 Lawson was the guitarist and lead singer of Spectrum, a Lexington band with Fleck on banjo, Gaudreau on mandolin and Schatz on bass. Its first album, Opening Roll (Rounder 0136, 1981), was followed by It’s Too Hot for Words (Rounder 0161, 1982), recorded at Track 16 in Lexington with Jimmy Mattingly added on fiddle. On a tour of Japan the band recorded its concert of 28 October 1981 at Nichifutsu Kaikan Hall in Tokyo, issued as Live in Japan by Trio in 1982 and by Rounder in 1983. When Fleck left late in 1981 to join the New Grass Revival, Spectrum broke up; Schatz followed Fleck to Nashville, and Lawson went back to school.