Mark Vann
Mark Vann was the banjo player in Leftover Salmon from the Colorado band’s start in 1989 until 2001, one of the three founding members, with Drew Emmitt and Vince Herman, at the center of its blend of bluegrass, Cajun and rock. A two-time winner of the Telluride banjo contest, he played on the band’s albums from Bridges to Bert (1992) to The Nashville Sessions (1999) and the live album released just after his death in March 2002, at 39.
Born in Maryland, he took up the five-string banjo after hearing Carl Pagter play it at a folk festival in 1972, and soon formed a family band with his brother Mike on mandolin, his father on guitar and his mother on upright bass. After a short time at college he moved to the mountains of northern Virginia, built a one-room cabin and played the banjo every day for two years.
On a trip to Colorado in 1989 he won a banjo contest and met Emmitt and Herman, and joined Emmitt’s Left Hand String Band. That year it merged with Herman’s Salmon Heads, and the combined band took the name Leftover Salmon. On Bridges to Bert (Whirled Beets, 1992) Vann played banjo and guitar. The live Ask the Fish, recorded in October 1994 and released in 1995, has him on electric banjo, and Euphoria (Hollywood, 1997) on banjo, with Sam Bush as a guest on fiddle.
For The Nashville Sessions (Hollywood, 1999) the band brought in guests from Earl Scruggs and Bela Fleck on banjo to Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Taj Mahal and John Popper. Vann played banjo and dobro and wrote two of the songs, the instrumental “Five Alive” and, with Herman, “Dance on Your Head.” Herman later described Vann, Emmitt and himself as the tripod the band stood on.
In the fall of 2001 he stopped touring for cancer treatment, and he died on March 4, 2002. Leftover Salmon released Live (Compass, 2002), with Vann on banjo alongside Emmitt, Herman, Bill McKay, Greg Garrison and Jose Martinez, two months later. Following his wishes the band carried on, with Matt Flinner and then Noam Pikelny on banjo, before taking an extended break.
