Gutpluckers News

January 1, 2007

Newest website up and running - counter hits 11,000

December 14, 2006 - Gutpluckers on MySpace

After many years of preparation, the band is ready to leap into the mainstream.

Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.27.2006

Letters to the Editor

If Krauthammer is ever in the area, we'd be happy to take him to listen to some country and Western music at the Lariat Steakhouse & Saloon in Catalina, on the north side of Tucson. There's great music on Sundays. A local band called the Tortolita Gutpluckers play there the last Sunday of the month, featuring a couple of friends, including "Diamond Jim" Hewitt on fiddle.

Thanks always for the columns — and to the Star for featuring them.

Pete Edwards

Tucson

August 29, 2004 - The Gutpluckers do Africa!

(email from Lane Johnson)
"One of my colleagues is headed to Kenya for sabbatical. He loves the Gutpluckers as his email below attests."

"I wonder if you can sell me two more CDs of Road Kill Stew? I will take them to Kenya as gifts from my culture. I have 3 CDs burned to my hard drive on the laptop I am taking there:
1. Missa Luba conducted by Boniface Mganga
2. Road Kill Stew cooked up by Lane and the GutPluckers
3. The Green Album by the Boston Pops

They will keep me sane, relaxed and inspired. Thanks, REP" - we are in good company! D.Jim.

December 13 , 2003 - The band was last seen on the cold streets of downtown Prescott (a.k.a. Christmas City, USA), as guerrilla bluegrass returns to its roots for native sons David Stephen and Lane Johnson, who grew up on the Johnson family ranch near Prescott, Arizona.

November 23, 2003 - Guerrilla Bluegrass -- dropping in unannounced the Tortolita Gutpluckers "every once in a while ... do what we call guerrilla bluegrass", Hewitt said. They'll meet on Fourth Avenue for a concert or go into a bar for a jam session. (Photo taken at Pima Community College cafeteria - from Arizona Daily Star, Sunday Nov. 23, 2003, "Gutpluckers follow a zany path", Northwest Neighbors section)

July 28, 2003 - "...roadhouse music at it's best":
( Review from The Music Korner web site) "Tortolita Gutpluckers - Wanted! Road Kill Stew
While Wanted! Road Kill Stew is the debut from Tucson’s Tortolita Gutpluckers, according to the liner notes these guys have been together for over 25 years. Recorded live in the studio this 6-piece throws together elements of old-time mountain music, bluegrass and country into a loose sounding collection that sounds like you just stepped into a roadhouse on a Saturday night. Comprised largely of traditional tunes and covers like “Boil That Cabbage Down”, “Ghost Riders In The Sky”, “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder”, “Froggy Went A-Courting”and “Orange Blossom Special” is Roadhouse music at it's best." - Geoff Melton

The Last Ride (2.7 meg MP3) (written by Ted Daffan and Robert Halcomb, © Hank Snow Music, Inc. (BMI))

Oct. 12 -2002, Oracle State Park - Gutpluckers play to standing room only crowd at the 3rd Annual Fiesta de las Calabazas (Actually we just ran of of chairs...)

The Gutpluckers listed as an "example of genre" for bluegrass music on the washtub bass web page.

Hey Dave, it was just a matter of time..... Check out http://tub-o-tone.com.

Oct. 13, 2001, Oracle, AZ - Gutpluckers play to several hundred fans at the Fiesta de las Calabazas at Rancho Robles in Oracle, Arizona.

Aug. 24, 2001 - Photos from Buff Billing's retirement party at Lil' Abner's Steak House in Tucson. Buff is one of the original Gut Plucker fans as well as an ardent field archaeologist who remembers those old days in the Tortolitas, dodging snakes and herding wanna-be archaeology students.

"What a GREAT version! [of Ghost Riders in the Sky] Who says you aren't ready for prime-time?" Bob Tykulsker, GRITS web site (email 03/20/2001) "Ghost Riders" is available for download as an MP3 file. Bob has compiled a web site with every version of Ghost Riders he can find, including ours. Check it out at www.surftools.com/grits/.

"Thanks for sending me your cd. Great stuff for my program.
Greetings from, BRTO Radio,Alex Pijnen,Holland " (Email 12/01/2000)