Banjoist, Bob Frederick, is a retired Eastern Kentucky University professor and department chair, but his professional career was in Biological Sciences, and not music. He has been performing bluegrass and old-time string band music since high school and throughout his college days, and continues that treasured folk tradition today.

Born and raised in Louisiana, Bob took up banjo in 8th grade when his family moved to Connecticut. Mostly self-taught, a few valuable lessons from Pitt Kinsolving and Roger Sprung led to his performing with some high-school friends on multiple stages. The family moved back to Louisiana where Bob graduated from high school in New Orleans, before his college days at Virginia Tech and Iowa State, where Bob and wife, Diane, were founding members of the Blacksburg Hoorah Cloggers and Onion Creek Cloggers, and where Bob played in the June Apple Band and in Hybrid Grass. In Kentucky since then, Bob played with The Wilder Brothers, Narrow Road, and currently plays with his trio, Two Sharps and a Flat, and, very recently, with Storm Chasers.

Bob played clarinet and oboe in school band and orchestra, but once he discovered 5-string banjo, he was hooked and put his focus on banjo. In those early days, Pete Seeger, John Hartford, and Earl Scruggs were influences. Bob attributes his first banjo teacher, Pitt Kinsolving, with requiring him to learn both the old-time clawhammer style along with 3-finger bluegrass techniques. Although Bob’s first interest was in instrumental bluegrass tunes, he became a big fan of bluegrass vocals and 3-part harmonies, and singing became equally important, with the banjo providing backup and instrumental breaks.

In the last 15 years, Bob has also performed vignettes with his violinist/fiddler daughter, Tessa Lark, on stages from Iowa to St. Barts. Since 2001, Bob has played his Osborne Chief #26 banjo, hand crafted by Frank Neat in Russell Springs, Kentucky