On The Fringe
Bands Blurring the Lines of Bluegrass
“I’m just proud that we got something down on tape that really captures the vibe of the Keel Stickley Duo,”
explains guitarist Jon Stickley about he and fellow guitarist Larry Keel’s recently released self-titled EP. “It’s a monumental live act, but had we never gotten the recording done, it could very well have been lost in the shuffle amongst all the other things we have going on. It was an honor to buckle down and get these songs together and lay down some really good tracks in the studio with one of my biggest heroes.” The album is a masterclass in modern flatpicking guitar. It is a powerful, yet intimate conversation between two of the genre’s most inventive modern guitarists. Both Stickley and Keel, who are progressive innovators, have uniquely original approaches to the guitar. Keel plays with a percussive clarity that, while hinting at a bluegrass heart, explodes with an improvisational freedom that is full of eye-opening twists and turns that boggle the mind. For Stickley, his genre-bending guitar lives at the edge of the jazz universe, but is delivered with a traditional, old-timey soul.
Keel, who is best known for his revolutionary, Tony Rice inspired guitar, has brought an adventurous approach to all he creates. He grew up in a musical household and was immersed in bluegrass as a child. His horizons would expand when he turned sixteen and friends introduced him to the Grateful Dead, jazz, blues, Van Halen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and more. Those non-traditional influences began to creep into his guitar playing, evolving into a forward-thinking, one-of-a-kind style. That uncommon style allowed Keel to win the Telluride Bluegrass guitar competition twice in 1993 and 1996. He would play with the seminal Magraw Gap in the early nineties, before striking out on his own with his own band.
Stickley discovered bluegrass after being introduced to it by his long-time high school friend Andy Thorn from Leftover Salmon. Until that point, Stickley was primarily focused on the electric guitar, but after Thorn introduced him to David Grisman and Bela Fleck, Stickley dove into bluegrass and the mandolin. He made the switch to guitar in college when he wanted to join a local band, but they already had a mandolin player and rhythm guitarist. With his options limited, Stickley made the prudent decision to ask if he could join as the band’s lead guitarist. He has never looked back since. His time in college was part of a fruitful scene that produced future members of Leftover Salmon, Mandolin Orange, Steep Canyon Rangers, Town Mountain, and others. He also logged time in the short-lived, but influential Broke Mountain Bluegrass Band that featured Anders Beck from Greensky Bluegrass, Travis Book from the Infamous Stringdusters, Andy Thorn from Leftover Salmon, and mandolin-wizard Robin Davis. Following the dissolution of Broke Mountain, Stickley played bass with Town Mountain for a stretch, but knew he wanted to get back to playing guitar, which he would with the formation of his experimental bluegrass band the Jon Stickley Trio.
Strickley and Keel first met in 2002 at a picking party in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At the time, Stickley was still in college and recalls jamming all night with Keel in the kitchen, who bestowed the nickname Sticky Rice on him that night. The two would cross paths over the ensuing years at festivals and through their shared network of friends. They would pick together when they got a chance and occasionally share a stage together.
Over the years, the pair shared a mutual admiration of each other. Keel says Stickley is an “amazing human being and such a kind spirit. His playing is so unique, it is truly his own. No boundaries. A real master.” While Stickley raves, “Larry is a true artist who has dedicated his life to his craft. He has a lot of personal and musical integrity and holds strongly to what he feels is true and right. His songwriting taps into the exploration of the human condition and is always a poignant commentary on the way he sees the world, and what he wishes it could be. He has always been an inspiration to me on many levels.”
With their long-shared history, they both dreamed of working and potentially recording together, but with differing schedules were unable to ever make it work. “We’ve talked about collaborating for years,” says Stickley, “but when Greensky Bluegrass asked us to open for them in November 2024, it was the perfect chance to give it a whirl. We did that show and one in Atlanta, and it all went so well, we decided to hit the studio and get something together because we knew we wanted to play together a lot more.”
Keel and Stickley wanted to choose songs for the album reflecting the dynamism between the two guitarists and tapped into their large reservoir of songs for the album. They chose a couple of Stickley instrumentals, the energetic “Future Ghost,” and the experimental “Take the Air” with its odd time signature. From Keel’s catalog, they added “Pioneers.” “Pioneers has always been one of my favorite tunes of Larry’s,” says Stickley, “and after hearing him play it with Tony Rice back in the day, I thought it could be worth recording this slower, guitar version.” They also added “Starborn,” Keel’s tribute to Jeff Austin. “Jon and I both were close friends and bandmates with him, and this is our tribute to our dear friend,” explains Keel. Stickley felt the same way: “Jeff Austin was a very close friend to both of us, so when Larry brought this song to the table, I was all about paying tribute to our old friend.” They rounded out the set with the Acoustic Syndicate classic “Sailor Suit.” “I wanted to do ‘Sailor Suit,” says Stickley, “because Acoustic Syndicate was such a huge part of my formative musical years, and Larry was a part of that as well.”
With material chosen, the pair convened in the Virginia hills in the middle of winter to start working on the album. With snow piled on the ground, the guitarists set up in separate rooms so they could record live to take advantage of the extraordinary chemistry between the two. Relying on their ability to play and improvise in a live setting, the two guitarists set out with the simple plan to set up, play, and avoid overthinking it. The differing personalities and approaches of the pair helped bring the perfect mix of spur-of-the-moment improvisation and calculated precision to the album. Stickley explains, “I tend to get a little uptight and obsessed with perfection in the studio, but Larry is kind of the opposite, so we ended up balancing each other out pretty well.” Keel summed it up simply, calling it, “A thrilling process.”
The album highlights the simple magic of two acoustic guitars. That magic becomes otherworldly when welded by wizards like Stickley and Keel. The intimate nature of the album and conversational tone powering it are reminiscent of the picking parties and campfires where Stickley and Keel first met and began playing together. It is not hard, as you listen to the album, to find yourself transported back to that moment of two master guitarists picking, grinning, and shredding in a loose, informal environment, which captures the raw excitement and pure energy of playing live with no net.
For Stickley, the beauty and power of the album springs from the joy of playing with Keel, and the singular chemistry the two musicians share. “Playing music with him is a dream come true for me. He’s written so many great songs over the years and is always down to jam on whatever I request. When we play together, the music is very conversational, and since it’s just the two of us, we’re able to let the music flow in whatever direction we like. There’s a lot of exciting improvisation, and we can be extremely sparse or work ourselves up into a frenzy of absolute chaos. It’s the best!”
