Tom Hanway - Influences and Early Career

Influences and Early Career

Tom Hanway learned to play the banjo in the 1980s, studying with Tony Trischka and Bill Keith, being inspired by their music and the music of Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Don Reno, Béla Fleck, David Bromberg, Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and Vassar Clements. In the late 80s and early 90s he worked with the John Herald Band (formerly the Greenbriar Boys), Blue Horizon, Burnt Toast, and with Kenny Kosek in the off-Broadway bluegrass musical Feast Here Tonight.

Hanway has played on dozens of recordings on both sides of the Atlantic, and has produced three recordings on his Joyous Gard Records label; for Bucket of Bees, he teamed up with Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, David Grier, Tony Trischka, Bill Keith and Vassar Clements in Nashville and New York City . He has performed onstage with Bill Monroe, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements, Rick Danko and Levon Helm. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he and Kathleen Low Hanway (1960–2002) organized the St. Mark’s Bluegrass Festival and the Big Apple Bluegrass & Folk Festival in New York City. In 2005, he won the European Bluegrass Music Association's 'European Bluegrass Band of the Year' award as a member of the Bluegrass Ravens.