“I’m at all times attempting to do issues I haven’t completed earlier than,” says guitarist/banjoist Eric Lindberg, who has toured and recorded for a decade with spouse Doni Zasloff because the bluegrass duo Nefesh Mountain.

“Lots of people know us as a bluegrass/principally acoustic band, however I actually have been getting again into my private roots – electrical, jazz, rock, and blues from my adolescence.”

These broader horizons and the expanded Nefesh Mountain Band with keyboard, mandolin, bass, and drums dominate their double album, Beacons. Disc one is Americana originals and amplified taking part in, whereas disc two’s trendy acoustic bluegrass options A-list visitor pickers. Becoming a member of mandolin ace Sam Bush and dobroist Jerry Douglas are banjoist Rob McCoury, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and guitarist Cody Kilby.

Rising up in Brooklyn, Lindberg explored his mother and father’ wide-ranging file assortment together with the 1996 David Grisman-Jerry Garcia bluegrass collaboration Shady Grove, which he calls “a giant one for me.” Discovering his dad’s Pat Metheny CD made the guitarist “certainly one of my North Stars.” Invoice Frisell and Jon Scofield later grew to become favorites.

Learning classical guitar at 10, his first guitar was a nylon-string that was quickly augmented by a Concord 335 copy performed by a tiny solid-state Marshall.

His uncle, Tim, who lived in Georgia, was a guitarist with spectacular gear of his personal.

“We might decide Allman Brothers tunes,” Lindberg remembers. “That’s most likely why I really like what I really like immediately – that combination of town and the south. These two sides of me.”

Discovering Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in highschool “…jogged my memory of a bluegrassy model of the Metheny group, although they’re nothing alike.”

Fleck’s Bluegrass Periods: Tales from the Acoustic Planet Vol. 2 launched him to Bush, Douglas, Duncan, and one other main guitar affect – Tony Rice.

Lindberg lastly embraced five-string banjo in 2013, taking classes from Tony Trischka. That led him to Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, John Hartford, Flatt and Scruggs, Invoice Monroe, and the Stanley Brothers, in addition to trendy acts like Nickel Creek. At Rutgers College’s Mason Gross College of the Arts, he targeted on music and continued research with jazz-guitar nice Vic Juris, which began in highschool. Together with jazz, Juris inspired his curiosity in bluegrass.

“Vic launched me to sure Tony Rice data,” he mentioned. “I used to be fortunate I had him as a mentor.”

Beacons consists of his heartfelt Rice homage “Man of Manzanita.”

Lindberg and Zasloff, who reside within the New York space, created the album there and in Nashville.

“I wrote the songs beginning in January, 2024, and we did all however three in Nashville that April. We introduced our band down for a number of days, then Sam, Jerry, Stuart, and all my heroes got here the final three days.”

Lindberg’s gear blends new and previous. He acquired a 1981 ES-175 whereas finding out with Juris – a manufacturing unit second with a small knot within the wooden. “Vic mentioned it was one of many higher ones he’d performed.”

On the bluegrass disc, he used solely a custom-made Preston Thompson acoustic with Madagascar rosewood he says is “actually lovely.” He additionally used his Deering five-string banjo.

For the Americana disc, he used two electrics, one being a ’52 Tele reissue he’s had for 25 years. Earlier than assembly Zasloff, he used it on USO excursions within the Center East. “Mom” options him soloing utilizing the neck pickup; engineer Brendan Bell used twin compression so it “…doesn’t sound tremendous Tele.”

“Milestoned,” against this, is tremendous Tele. After school, he says, “…though I used to be taking part in quite a lot of jazz, I used to be actually into Brett Mason, Johnny Hiland, Brad Paisley, and naturally James Burton and Danny Gatton. I used to be actually attempting to do the Tele factor. It’s enjoyable to step again in, and I’m taking part in quite a lot of that stuff stay.”

“Maintain Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is his Customized Store ’64 SG with a Murphy Lab end, and he’s particularly drawn to its thick neck form.

After Tim handed, he visited his aunt and returned along with his uncle’s ’65 SG Junior and an ’81 Strat.

“I’ll see if I wish to take the ’65 on the highway,” he mentioned. “It’s a fairly wonderful-sounding previous piece of wooden.”

For the Americana tracks, he used a modded Fender Princeton, a ’90s Deluxe Reverb (each borrowed from a good friend), and a brand new Magnatone.

With the Nefesh Mountain Band on tour by ’25, Lindberg and Zasloff need to their subsequent file, as Lindberg displays on the band’s voyage.

“We’ve come a good distance from that first file to the place Beacons is now.” – Wealthy Kienzle

This text initially appeared in VG’s April 2025 difficulty. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.