Mason Wright
A Fiddler You Should Know
Mason Wright is a fiddler who can play many different styles, including classical, country, and bluegrass. He’s been a member of several bands, from traditional to contemporary, and has a teaching workload as well. He’s serious about his music but has a humorous side, as reported by several former bandmates.
Mason grew up in southwestern Virginia in a small town called Rocky Mount with a lot of bluegrass in the area. It serves as the gateway to The Crooked Road, Virginia’s renowned heritage music trail.
Mason’s grandpa, Larry Robertson, was an amazing influence, he says, a wonderful finger-style guitar and banjo player. Mason grew up with the music right in front of him. His parents, Barry and Suzie Wright, listened to a lot of music through a big stereo system with four big speakers. They were always playing music such as Alison Krauss, the Cox Family, Dwight Yoakam, Chet Atkins, Mark O’Connor, and Edgar Meyer. He listened to a variety of music. “My parents wanted to get me into an instrument around the time I was six,” he recalls, and the story goes that he was choosing between piano and violin. Mason flipped back and forth and finally his parents said, “We’re doing violin, and you’re not going to change your mind again.” So, for the first two years he worked on the violin almost exclusively with classical and Suzuki lessons. He took a couple of summers of fiddle lessons, and he had been to Galax by age three or four. He took his instrument and began learning fiddle tunes. That was his beginning in bluegrass.
Jeremy Stephens, founding member and frontman for the bluegrass band High Fidelity, recalls meeting Mason. “One of my mentors was a guy named Troy Brammer from Collinsville, Virginia,” he said. Troy was in a band called Jake & Fennie & The Hearts of Gold. Jake was the banjo player, and his brother Larry Robertson held the bass position.” Jeremy recalls meeting Larry through Troy and Jake at the Galax Fiddler’s Convention. Larry’s oldest grandson was Mason, who was probably about ten years old at that time and was already playing fiddle and “just tearing it up.” Stephens remembers Mason playing traditional fiddle and “beating everybody in the junior contests, and he just went up from there.” Stephens was around Mason during that time; they played a lot together.
Stephens remarked that Mason is a phenomenal member of the Seth Mulder band, who performed at the IBMA World of Bluegrass last year in Chattanooga. Jeremey said it may have been the best band Seth has had.
Wright is the oldest of five kids, and they all played music. When he was twelve, Mason founded The Wright Kids with his siblings, sister Sage, brothers Levi, and Baruch. The Wright Kids recorded their first album, Havin’ Fun, in 2005, which included guest artists Dale Perry on banjo and former Lonesome River Band member Jeff Midkiff on mandolin. Playing on the Job followed in 2008, as Mason moved on to his college days. The younger siblings, without Mason, appeared on the America’s Got Talent television show and clips can be found on www.YouTube.com. He would still participate in fiddle contests in the Galax area and was in their first youth contests, and he played some gigs at age nine. He was the strolling violinist at a coffee shop in Rocky Mount. Mason kept up his classical lessons and participated in junior strings programs and youth symphony events. This continued through his college years, when he stopped competing in 2007.
Mason attended Shenandoah University (sometimes referred to as the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music) in Winchester, Virginia, where he studied violin performance for three years.
In college, Mason studied under violin professor Akemi Takayama. A native of Japan, known as “Kemi,” she holds the Victor Brown Endowed Chair in Violin and serves as the concertmaster of both the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Takayama’s professional violin career began in Japan at the age of fifteen. She has performed throughout Japan, France, and the U.S.
Kemi remarked that Mason was already a mature person in college, which surprised her. She remembers a time when he chose not to play in the school orchestra she suggested because he thought he found his type of music and could be in a band. Kemi remembers that Mason was already thinking about how he wanted to navigate his future. Kemi said Mason arrived at Shenandoah University already knowing how to play Paganini and Bach pieces, but she still emphasized the basics and good intonation. Kemi said, “What struck me about Mason was that he was a deep thinker at that age already, and he was so polite.” He chose music production as a major. “I’m so proud of Mason,” Ms. Takayama said. He’s made a success of his pursuit of his love of music.
Wright says before he left for college he met a banjo player, Gregg Stump, around the Galax area who mentioned a throw-together gig. At the show, Mason met a mandolin player named Buddy Dunlap, who was in a band that was looking for a fiddle player. Mason auditioned and got the position. The band was Lonesome Highway. Formed in 1996 as a four-piece cover band, Lonesome Highway had become a major force on the bluegrass scene and released four recordings, with Mason providing the fiddle work on one CD, Got Away with Murder. They worked out of the Romny, West Virginia area. Mason lived close by in Winchester, Virginia.
Buddy says Mason is an incredible fiddle player and fun to travel with. “He’s a man of one-liners,” says Buddy. Buddy also recorded a solo project titled Better Days with Mason providing the fiddle parts. Mason played with Lonesome Highway for seven or eight years until the band ended.
Wright then segued to Audie Blaylock & Redline. Reed Jones was the bass player with Audie at that time. Patrick McAvinue held the fiddle position when Reed joined the band in 2010, and Patrick was the only fiddle player for most of that time until joining the Navy’s Country Current Band. Mason came onboard around 2017. Audie was reviewing older email and came across Mason’s message. They met at a festival in Niles, Michigan. Mason got the position with Audie. He was very different from Patrick’s style,” Reed remarked, “but he still fit the Redline band really, really well.” Audie could be demanding in terms of his expectations. He had used Michael Cleveland and then Patrick, and then Mason had to follow that!
Reed also reports, “Mason’s personality just fit so well. He can chill and be laid back. He also has a deep interest in stand-up comedy. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life.” Reed says. “I loved being around him.” Mason seemed to always be doing something with his video camera or creating vlogs. Reed also noted that Mason was very energetic on stage, which is confirmed by a number of online videos.
Reed noted that Mason had a fiddle that sounded really good, but Redline was a pretty intense band, and his fiddle wasn’t the loudest in the world. Sometimes it could be tough to hear him over the band sound. Mason soon obtained another fiddle from Jason Barie, fiddler with Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers. After the first show with that fiddle in West Virginia, Mason played it for the rest of his time with Redline.
Redline didn’t carry a mandolin player, so the fiddler had to provide the “chop.” Mason had to adapt to that role and developed a deep sense of rhythm, according to Reed. He observed that if one could play in Audie’s band, one could play well with anyone.
Audie passed away on January 10, 2024, much too early at age 61. His last recording was titled Originalist in 2019, which was Mason’s only project with Redline. One track is titled “The Gate Called Beautiful,” written by Reed as a gospel number based on Acts 3. It got to the top of the Bluegrass Today gospel charts.
Mason remarked, “The song that Reed wrote is amazing. I’ve always thought of Reed as one of the best songwriters I’ve ever worked with. Not only did this song have beautiful lyrics, it also had a very different feel from a standard bluegrass gospel song. In fact, I will go so far as to say that this song wasn’t exactly bluegrass. It was just really good music. And if you have heard the track, you know about the amazing harmony singing. I always considered myself extremely fortunate to stand on stage with such a powerful vocal trio. Audie’s soaring tenor line on that chorus is something I will never forget.”
After Audie’s passing, Mason started playing with Buddy Dunlap’s brother, Jack, in a band called Dunlap and Mabe. Jack remembers, “He (Mason) was playing in a band with my older brother, Buddy, called Lonesome Highway, a local regional band from West Virginia and the Northern Virginia area. Jack says Mason is a really easy guy to get along with, and he was a fan from the beginning.
Dunlap and Mabe recorded two CDs with Mason: Stumblin’ Out of the Gate and Horses & Horsepower. Stumblin’ Out of the Gate started as a solo project from Jack at the end of 2020 during the COVID shutdown.
In 2023, their sophomore recording was released. Alex Kimble played bass on this project with Danny Knicely on mandolin. Mason still handled the fiddle duties. They played a lot of private events and some festivals.
Mason then moved to Seth Mulder and Midnight Run in 2025. As reported by Bluegrass Today in February 2025,” Mulder announced a new addition to the band, welcoming Virginia fiddler Mason Wright, replacing Max Silverstein. Mason joins Seth on mandolin and lead vocals, Anthony Howell on guitar, Carter Lester on banjo, and Tyler Griffith on bass.” (Recruiting a banjo player at that time was still ongoing.)
Mulder remembers, “Actually, a friend of mine, Jack Dunlap, reached out to me as we were looking for a fiddler and said he had a friend who would be a good fit. I wasn’t very familiar with Mason up until that point. Then I realized I’d seen videos with him during his time with Audie Blaylock.” Seth continued, “He’s a phenomenal player and a great guy to be around. We’re a very high energy band with a lot of drive in our music, Mason brought that to the table, but also has a softer, delicate side. He doesn’t just come from a bluegrass thing, He’s well rounded and brought a lot of great elements to the band. He fits in on his own.” This contributes to making the band a cohesive unit and gets everyone on the same beam.
Bandmate Anthony Howell added, “Mason and I hit it off immediately when he first came to work with Midnight Run. We found out fast that he had an incredible sense of humor. He’s just as good as being funny as he is playing the fiddle. On our first road trip with him, he had everyone laughing the entire time. We would joke and ask him why he was playing music when he could easily be a comedian.
“He was really good at keeping things lighthearted, which made travel a lot easier, but he was also really good at having serious conversations. He’s the type of person you really want to be friends with because he’s fun to be around, but you also have no problem talking to him about anything. That’s invaluable. It’s also really nice to know that even though we’re not traveling together, I know that we will still talk and be friends. Mason and I would also talk about how we had crossed paths many times before but never met. I played at the Bluegrass Sampler in Racine, Wisconsin and Tug Hill Bluegrass Festival in Lowville, NY, when I was traveling with Williamson Branch. I remember playing both of those festivals when we would play right before or right after Audie Blaylock and Redline. I distinctly remember sharing a green room with them both times and even having conversations with Audie when his band was present, not knowing Mason was standing right there the whole time. When Mason and I would talk about that, we would just be baffled at how we could run the same circles for so long, never once shake hands or talk to each other, and then end up playing in a band together. I spent almost the exact same amount of time with Williamson Branch as he did with Redline. What a coincidence.”
Readers understand the life of a road musician is not easy no matter what the genre. Mason remarked his wife, Alison, is even more supportive of his career than he is. “She pushed me to go play,” he says. They also have two children at home.
In October 2025, Mason announced he was leaving Midnight Run at the end of the year. Bluegrass Today quoted Mason, “This past year has been an absolute blast — traveling the world and playing music with Seth and the guys has been an incredible experience. From Europe to Canada and all across the US, I’ve had the chance to play amazing venues and meet so many great people. I’m grateful to Seth for bringing me into the band and giving me the opportunity to share the stage with such talented musicians. That said, having such a busy schedule has kept me from doing other things I enjoy, so I’ve decided to step back to make more space for the other parts of my musical life.”
This movement of artists within the bluegrass community is commonplace and no one has hard feelings. Since leaving Midnight Run, Mason has been playing gigs with friends Jack Dunlap and Alex Kimble. Mason reports, “Those are the gigs I enjoy most. I’ve also been doing some new things, including filling in with bands on the bluegrass circuit, performing with vocal ensembles at Shenandoah Conservatory, and recently playing fiddle for a short film, The River Maid, which is set to release later this year. However, my primary focus has been teaching. I have a blast making educational content for my Patreon and am excited to see that grow. I have also added several new students to my private studio.”
Mason is still looking for his next musical home. “I’m not sure what that is, but I am very content with what I’m doing now, and I’m sure I’ll recognize the right opportunity when it presents itself,” Mason says.
One can contact Mason on his website: masonwrightmusic.com/home, or YouTube and take some lessons from him. He can also be found on Patreon. He has students in California, Canada, and even Denmark.
Look for Mason online or perhaps popping up in some future gigs or as a guest on a new recording. No matter what the setting, Mason Wright and his fiddle bring talent and versatility to the current bluegrass scene. Perhaps he will add stand-up comedy to his next band!
