Scott Morgan - guitar John Relph - mandolin
Scott Morgan is a lifelong musician and luthier playing both guitar and mandolin. His roots in music and fine instrument building started at an early age in Takoma Park, Maryland, and developed further with his family’s return to their homeplace in Morgan Springs, Tennessee in 1973. He continues to build instruments and perform to this day. His father, Tom Morgan, who builds autoharps, banjos and mandolins, was an original member of The Country Gentlemen, and is still involved in both music and luthiery. In 2007, Scott was awarded a grant to teach the art of guitar building, and is designated as a Master Luthier by the Georgia Council for the Arts. He played in his family band, The Morgans for many years. He was a founding member of the Barn Rats, an Atlanta, Georgia based jamgrass band. He has shared the stage with many excellent musicians over the years, including Curly Fox, John Hartford, Red Rector, Ron Wall, John McCutcheon, Vassar Clements, Randall Collins, Ralph Stanley, the New Grass Revival, and Grandpa Jones, to name a few. He currently performs solo, in various duets, and with Newgrass Effect, a DC area progressive Bluegrass band.
At the age of 16, John Relph entered and won the Junior Picking division at the California State Fiddle Contest in Sonora. He has since been California State Picking Champion numerous times on both mandolin and guitar. John also accompanied his sisters when they entered fiddle contests; his sister Linda was California State Ladies Champion three years running. John went on to become one of California's most popular fiddle contest accompanists. He has played with numerous fiddlers at the National Oldtime Fiddler's Contest in Weiser, Idaho as well as performed on the Weiser stage as an entertainer, accompanying the likes of Alex Hargreaves, Tiny Moore, Dick Barrett and many others. John keeps himself busy playing classical, celtic, jazz, fiddle tunes, oldtime, Britpop, progressive rock, and other less classifiable musical genres. He also plays in two Washington, DC, area bluegrass bands: Dirty River, who recently released their first album, Graveyard Train, and Newgrass Effect, purveyors of fine bluegrass and psychedlia.