Connecting traditional songs of yesterday with their own original and inventive sounds of today, Larry Keel & Natural Bridge create astonishingly powerful acoustic music rich in heritage, heart and hot licks! With a style that evokes both atomic rock energy and dynamic tonal purity, Keel and his ensemble are intent upon taking their instruments and their voices to their fullest potential for emotion and amazement. While paying respect to the legacy left by the forefathers of bluegrass, Keel bridges the gap between traditional and contemporary American Mountain Music. Larry Keel & Natural Bridge includes flatpicking guitar master Larry Keel (guitar, lead and harmony vocals), Jenny Keel (bass fiddle, lead and harmony vocals) and Mark Schimick (mandolin, lead and harmony vocals).
Born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Larry Keel is a young veteran musician who has always been immersed in the traditional ways and etiquette of playing mountain music. Both Larry’s father and brother (themselves skilled and versatile acoustic musicians) influenced the younger Keel to thoroughly master the foundations of acoustic guitar (tune, timing, tone) before venturing into his own original territory. From a very young age, Larry made it his goal to honor and preserve the discipline of the Traditional Bluegrass music he knows and loves, while expressing his own ideas through acoustic music. At 18 years old Keel became a contracted musician to play Bluegrass at the Tokyo Disneyland theme park in Japan for 7 months (6 shows a day, 6 days a week). Back in the States Larry joined up with like-minded Bluegrass pickers young and old to travel the festival and fiddler’s convention circuit of the entire east coast. Keel’s long time friend and banjo player Mark Vann (Leftover Salmon) encouraged him to travel to Colorado to attend the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and compete in its prestigious guitar competition. That year he won first place, and by 1995 he and long-time Bluegrass peer Will Lee (son of Ricky Lee from Ralph Stanley’s band) led their string band Magraw Gap to victory in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival band competition. Moreover, Larry again competed in and won first place in the guitar competition at Telluride that year. Over the years Larry Keel has become a world-class flatpicking guitarist, and that talent has earned him legendary status with fans and the highest respect amongst his musical peers. In recent performances Larry has led bands involving such industry icons as Tony Rice, Jeff Austin, Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Curtis Burch (New Grass Revival), Vassar Clements, Joe Craven, Jim Lauderdale, and Tony Trischka; in addition he has played specialty sets alongside Darrell Scott, Keller Williams, and Sam Bush and guitar workshops along side David Grier and Jorma Kaukonen. Keel’s distinct style of flatpicking the guitar is the tool with which he creates his original brand of songwriting and his peers have taken notice. Both Del McCoury and Acoustic Syndicate have recorded Larry’s original material. The Del McCoury Band recorded Larry’s ‘Mountain Song’ on their 2005 Grammy award winning release, The Company We Keep. Acoustic Syndicate recorded ‘Long Way Round’ as their title track for their 2004 release. In 2006, Larry and his wife Jenny teamed up with guitar virtuoso, Keller Williams to release the Keller and the Keels album, Grass. With extensive national airplay and selective touring to support the album, Grass found its way to the Billboard Bluegrass Chart, where it stood in the Top 15 for over 12 weeks.
Larry Keel has had for a very long time a very clear vision of what he wants to do with his musical talents, and the guiding principle is this: to nurture and preserve our American musical heritage while letting it inspire Keel’s own original writing and playing. As he pays his deepest respects to the masters who invented Bluegrass, Keel has become a master himself of Bluegrass, as well as of his own music. Larry Keel is a true heir to the Bluegrass legacy, and his talents as a guitar genius, as an innovative and expressive singer-songwriter and as a bandleader place him amongst the best of the purveyors of American Mountain Music.
