Three by The Hunger Mountain Boys

"Hiccup Remedy Blues" sounds like 1930's hot jazz, while "I've Got The Blues Mary" is more countryish with brother-duo harmonies and some startlingly virtuosic bottleneck slide guitar, and "Departure Day" sounds like an early Monroe Brothers tune with lickety-split guitar/mandolin interplay and tight sweet vocal harmonies. And that's just the first three songs on the album! Very highly recommended."

-Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine Dec 2006

“These boys from The Berkshires are a little too melodic to be old-time and a little too rough hewn to be bluegrass.... The album careens from blisteringly fast to cheerfully rambling…. Their compositions are indistinguishable in quality and tone from the older tunes covered.”

-Dirty Linen Magazine Feb/March 2007

"Although brother-act tributes are common these days, The Hunger Mountain Boys are in front of the pack...."

READ THE REVIEW FOR "THREE": http://www.bluegrassmusicprofiles.com/Hunger%20Mtn%20Boys%20RR...Three.htm

-Bluegrass Music Profiles

Sept-Oct 2006 Issue

About THREE: "A listener would be hard pressed to tell the originals from the covers. Highly Recommended."

-Country Standard Time- Sept 2006

NOT Including festivals, The Hunger Mountain Boys have shared the stage with legendary performers such as Taj Mahal, Del McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Iris Dement, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys and many others.

LAST UPDATED 6/14/06

BAND HISTORY...

When Kip Beacco (mandolin, fiddle, guitar & vocals) and Teddy Tetlow Weber (guitar, steel guitar and vocals) set out to create The Hunger Mountain Boys, it was with the intent to capture a certain spirit in their music. Though obsessed with all American music that’s old, particularly early country music from the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, these boys are products of the rock era. Electric guitars, big drum sets and screaming vocals all somehow led to…. Jimmie Rodgers with an acoustic guitar? For the Hunger Mountain Boys, yes. And this reverse path through American music’s evolution has set a foundation for these two relatively young lads—a base on which to build their own music.

Upon their introduction at a bluegrass jam in 2002, Weber and Beacco hit it off instantly. Recognizing each other’s obsession with the spirit of early American music, the two began trading music and playing together regularly. Long nights of listening to old vinyl recordings and picking songs began on Hunger Mountain, the Berkshire hill where Beacco hangs his hat in Massachusetts. The Hunger Mountain Boys was born.

TEDDY T. WEBER guitar, steel guitar, vocals

Weber, growing up in rural northwestern New Jersey, was exposed to all kinds of music, virtually everything except for early country and bluegrass music. Playing cornet in raucas urban ska bands, college jazz and classical ensembles and later acoustic guitar in folk circles from Maine to Colorado, Weber pulls from his own musical background. Influenced by an eclectic mix from blues to bluegrass and folk to jazz, Weber is also a classically trained trumpeter, and subsequently no stranger to performing in suit and tie.

In 1996 Weber stopped playing cornet and moved to Maine to study forestry. Within months he had traded in his horn for an acoustic guitar and found himself on stage again, this time picking the six-string, singing and writing songs. By 2001, shortly before his initial introduction to Beacco, he added lap style steel guitar (Dobro) to his repertoire. His steel guitar and Dobro playing can be heard on 2005 releases by Todd Mack and Devendra Banhart.

KIP BEACCO mandolin, guitar, fiddle, vocals

Beacco grew up in the small town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Though there were no old fiddlers sawing the strings up in the hills, there was an older neighborhood kid playing rock guitar, and a middle-aged, eclectic and very accomplished drummer/pianist, both of whom sparked an interest in the young, impressionable Beacco. Within a couple years, Beacco was in his first neighborhood garage band, playing guitar and drums, learning the latest pop/rock hits. A few bands later he was experimenting with many styles of music, including rock, fusion, jazz, blues, and folk. After attending a bluegrass festival in 1989, Beacco found the musical format he had been searching for, and the instrument that took hold was the mandolin.

Moving to Eugene, Oregon, and then to Fort Collins, Colorado in the mid 90’s, Beacco honed his mandolin chops forming The GrassRoute with singer/guitarist Bradford Lee Folk (Open Road). After roughly seven years, he returned home to his native Berkshire County, and started up another traditional, 5-piece bluegrass band, The Beartown Ramblers, further developing his bluegrass chops on mandolin as well as singing lead and baritone. Along the way Beacco has added the fiddle to his repetoire, rounding out the trio of instruments he now plays in The Hunger Mountain Boys. (Beacco photo by Mark L. Baer)

MATT DOWNING string bass

Downing’s musical roots were established in Iowa where his parents took him to jazz clubs and music festivals from the time he could walk. His family eventually moved to western Massachusetts—the place he now calls home—into a farmhouse just down the road from Arlo Guthrie’s church. After graduation, travels took him to live and work for a time on the island of St. John, then northern California, and a stint living on his sailboat in the Florida Keys before he found himself back in the Berkshires listening to a local bluegrass band called the Beartown Mountain Ramblers. The band needed a bass player, Downing said, “I can do that,” and he rented a bass, practiced up, and joined in. Along the way he picked up mandolin, banjo, ukulele, guitar, plus a little songwriting, and now performs in clubs and recording studios with a variety of groups. For the last several years, he has juggled his day job as a carpenter with national and international tours playing bass with Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops, and a 1927 National tricone tenor guitar with the Berkshire swing band The Blue Ribbon Boys. He is especially happy to join his longtime friends Kip and Ted in growing The Hunger Mountain Boys into a trio.

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