photo by R. Crumb

...Oh all right, real photos are at their website.

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I've known Ed Littlefield Jr. since we were both young whippersnappers, playing fiddle tunes with Hank Bradley and the legendary Doc Watson. Over the years his love of traditional music has never waned. Some might know him as that guy whose @#%!!$ bagpipes wake them up in the morning, but most know him in the context of Marley's Ghost.

Real roots music, or as mutual friend Nick Forster puts it, "music with a low BS factor" ...that's Marley's Ghost. In their case the roots go in so many directions it defies classification. Combine that with four distinctive lead voices, and four multi-instrumentalists, (now add one drummer / percussionist) and it would seem that continuity would be an issue. Yet there is an unmistakable Marley's Ghost feel and sound that ties it all together comfortably.

I've gotten to sit in with them many times, and it is always a pleasure.

 

 

Dan Wheetman, Ed Littlefield Jr., Mike Phelan and Jon Wilcox are all talented guys, all good friends, and (now we're getting to the real point, aren't we?) ...all use Shubb capos.

Ed and Mike are especially fond of the Shubb partial capo; Mike always has one with him, and uses it on many of his songs, sometimes in conjunction with our regular capo. He's passionate about how cool it is, and loves to turn people on to it.

Mike has joined me at our NAMM show booth in Anaheim the past several years, where it is perfectly appropriate for him to extol the virtues of Shubb capos to his heart's content.

When my wife had first met Mike Phelan, but not yet learned his name, she referred to him as "the man with the nice smile"