Mark Graham

Mark Graham has been playing old-time music on the Marine Band harmonica for over 30 years. In that time he has played hundreds of concerts and dances and performed with many of the luminaries of Southern old-time and bluegrass music including Tim O'Brien, Laurie Lewis, Dirk Powell, The Horseflies, The Chicken Chokers, Tom Sauber, Pete Sutherland, Bad Livers and Hurricane Ridgerunners.

One of the few harmonica players schooled in the melodic and rhythmic intricacies of Southern stringband music he plays in a powerful yet lyrical, blues-tinged style that recalls the feel of the finest fiddle and banjo playing. Graham is one of the few harp players who can "burn it up" like Norman Edmonds and Earl Johnson or evoke the lonesome desolation of Dock Boggs' banjo playing and singing.

With an encyclopedic knowledge of Southern country and blues styles, Mark has mastered the hallmark traditional harmonica solos: fox chases, train impressions,and call and response song accompaniment reminiscent of Sonny Terry and Peg Leg Sam.

The song writing of Mark Graham is a singular universe of surreal mountain hilarity and lonesome terror that covers the big subjects:The Beginning of the Universe, Natural Science, Mathematics, Food, Stupidity, Great Literature, Festival Love and Death, while drawing favorable comparison with: Homer and Jethro, The Tobacco Tags, Blind Alfred Reed and Dock Boggs, the revered songwriters of country music's past. His songs have been performed and recorded by The Austin Lounge Lizards, Bryan Bowers, Bad Livers and The Limelighters.

An evening with Mark Graham is a trip to a rip-roaring, old-time, slugfest illuminated by great flashes of wit and fascinating insight into the human condition.