Playing Since: 1976
Experience Level: Expert/Professional

Interests:
[Teaching] [Jamming] [Socializing] [Helping]

Occupation: Software Engineer

Gender: Male
Age: 71

My Instruments:
Bluegrass Banjo - Scruggs / Hickman style

Favorite Bands/Musicians:
BCH
Seldom Scene
Jim Mills
J.D. Crowe
Earl Scruggs
John Hickman
Sierra Hull
Byron Berline
Dan Crary
Tony Rice
Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper
The Boxcars
Bill Emerson

Byron Berline
Dan Crary
John Hickman
Tony Rice
J.D. Crowe
Jim Mills
Earl Scruggs
Mark O'Connor
Michael Cleveland
Chris Thile
Sierra Hull
David Grisman
Tom Gray
Ben Eldridge
Molly Tuttle
Bryan Sutton

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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 12/30/2021
Last Visit 4/9/2024

Steve Rosen is one of the top banjo players in California that remains to be discovered, mostly due to the fact that he disappeared from the bluegrass scene for a couple of decades while raising a family and working for several high-tech startup companies (his day job). Steve first discovered the banjo while going to college at UCLA in the mid-1970s. He had been playing folk and folk-rock guitar for more than a dozen years and was interested in learning a new instrument. He happened to see a "Banjo for Sale - just $50" sign in the student co-op he lived in and decided the price was right (he was, after all, a student!) - and the rest, as they say, is history. Steve was quite fortunate to meet John Hickman at a Southern California bluegrass festival (NORCO) - John was living in Redondo Beach at the time and agreed to let Steve take lessons from him for the next 18 months. Each week, Steve would eagerly show up at John's house and spend a couple of hours, learning all he could from one of the best banjo players ever - John was in a band at that time with two other amazing bluegrass musicians - Byron Berline on fiddle and Dan Crary on guitar. John's brother, George Hickman, played bass with them. Steve formed a couple of bluegrass bands while in college, including one band, Kickin' Grass, that performed on the Gong Show - and won! Steve was also mentored for awhile by another great banjo player, Bill Knopf - and when Bill left Southern California for almost a year (to tour with a country-western band whose lead singer was Donna Douglas - AKA "Elly May Clampett" on the Beverly Hillbillies TV series), he asked Steve to take over all 30 of his banjo students while he was gone. He also asked Steve to cover for him in his extremely popular bluegrass band during that time - Hot Off The Press (with Howard Yearwood on guitar, Carol Yearwood on bass, Bruce Johnson on fiddle, and Frank Javorsec on mandolin). Steve also played in many of the popular jam sessions, including one where he taught his banjo students (at the Blueridge Pickin' Parlor) and another at The Banjo Cafe in Santa Monica, where he had the pleasure of jamming with Pat Cloud, one of the most creative and versatile banjo players ever (Pat never used a capo, since he knew how to play in any key - and knew, literally, all of the scales for all keys - he could play hard-driving Scruggs-style at one extreme and then play a classical jazz instrumental at the other extreme). After graduating college, Steve moved to the Bay Area in 1980, where he became totally involved in his new career as a software engineer and worked for a good number of startup companies - he also got married in 1988 and soon had 3 sons - family life and dedication to his career consumed him for the next two decades. Steve continued to play bluegrass music, but remained hidden from the public during that time. But starting a couple of years ago, Steve decided to return to the bluegrass scene - and came back with a vengeance! He put an ad in Craigslist, which lead him to meet up with Mark Kronar - when they first met each other and discovered they had common roots back in California (including the fact that Mark played in a band with Pat Cloud!). Steve and Mark realized they were like 2 peas in a pod since their musicality was very well matched - and quickly formed One Lane Ahead. The One Lane Ahead band went through a few different iterations - and finally ended up morphing into its current configuration and current name, Skyline Special. Steve also started a new invitational bluegrass jam session, The Java Jam (using the same software created by Tom Lucas that powers the infamous Taco Jam in Oakland every Monday night) - it's held every Wednesday night at the Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company from 8 pm to 10 pm. Steve's hard-driving style is unique, but heavily influenced by his main mentor, John Hickman - Steve's style is a mixture of influences from his 4 favorite banjo players: John Hickman, Earl Scruggs, Bill Emerson, and Jim Mills. Steve plays a relatively rare 40-hole, one-piece flange Gibson Mastertone archtop banjo that was built the same week the stock market crashed in late October, 1929. He recently lucked out and was able to become the latest owner of John Hickman's flathead style 6 banjo - it was the same banjo that John used between the time he purchased the banjo from Chuck Erikson (who was also the luthier who made the custom 5-string neck for John per his specifications) in February, 1970 and 1989, when John sold the banjo to Alison Brown (another one of John's students when she was just a teenager)