Guitar performer and five-string banjo virtuoso Eddie Adcock has been one of bluegrass music’s finest and most innovative performers for more than forty years.
He cut his musical teeth with Bill Monroe and Mac Wiseman, and as one-third of the groundbreaking trio The Country Gentlemen Eddie was the first internationally acclaimed five-string bluegrass banjo player to play at Carnegie Hall and soon afterwards released his first collection books of country guitar tabs and country guitar tablatures.
Since then his work with his spouse, Martha Adcock, has garnered 3 Grammy nominations and appearances at the Kennedy Center and on a lot of syndicated and local TV and radio shows. Eddie has been named “Instrumentalist of The Year” (Major Independent Record Label Awards ceremony) and “Entertainer of The Year” (International Bluegrass Music Association). The original Country Gentlemen have lately been inducted into the IBMA’s high-profile Hall of Honor.
Three time Grammy nominee Eddie Adcock has charmed all sorts of crowds all across the U. S., Canada and Europe with his bluegrass and acoustic country tunes, with rave reviews, considerably press and serious airplay around the world. He was married in 1976 and now hangs his hat in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Martha.
Cashbox Magazine calls him “a stellar musician and vocalist,” and Billboard has named him “one of the Bluegrass circuit’s top acts.” He has taken his warm, witty, high-energy tunes from local clubs to the Kennedy Center. Incorporating genuine Travis-style fingerpicking with lightning fast bluegrass runs, Eddie gets as enjoyable a guitar sound as you’ll hear anywhere! His innovative guitar techniques incorporate right hand banjo rolls, complex slides, pull-offs and hammer-ons, and alternating thumb index finger combinations to name but a few.
Eddie Adcock has performed on “Austin City Limits,” TNN’s “Nashville Now” and “Wildhorse Saloon,” NPR specials, and a lot of syndicated and local TV and radio shows. His video, Dog, attained airplay on TNN, CMT, and even CNN. He released a variety of well-known albums, appearing on a number of bluegrass and country charts.
Eddie Adcock plays a lot of his own original songs, both vocal songs and instrumentals, showcasing his robust, expressive style and somehow sounding like more than himself. Focus calls his songs “ensnaring.” Woven in and amongst his uniquely-styled music are influences from bluegrass, country, folk, jazz, blues, rock and roll, gospel, and rockabilly, transcending into an unique and heady sound, part of the past, present, and certainly the future! And his warm yet edgy style and uninhibited stage persona is a real treat.
Eddie’s zany stage humor might in the beginning belie the fact that he is an influential, revolutionary stylist on guitar and banjo – plain and simple: a superpicker! He has been one of Bluegrass music’s finest and most revolutionary performers for more than 40 years. Country Music Magazine calls Eddie Adcock’s performing and instrumental influence “legendary.” Viewed as the originator of a recognized style of playing, he was the first internationally acclaimed 5-string bluegrass banjoist to appear at Carnegie Hall – as spark plug in The Country Gentlemen. In the course of Eddie’s 12-year tenure with them from 1958 to 1970, they were the group who altered bluegrass and took it uptown. In his earlier days, Eddie was a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, remembered by Bill as being his preferred baritone singer.
Eddie Adcock belongs to a variety of business organizations, such as IBMA and the Folk Alliance. He has worked on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Banjo Institute. He also runs Adcock Audio, a large, state-of-the-art sound company. And he maintains a vast mailing list in order to stay in touch with deejays, press, and fans.