Jimmy Gaudreau
Jimmy Gaudreau (born March 7, 1946) is an American bluegrass mandolinist and vocalist. Born in Charlestown, Rhode Island, he began his career playing electric guitar in local rock bands before shifting to acoustic string instruments during the 1960s folk revival. In March 1969 he relocated to Washington, D.C., to replace founding mandolinist John Duffey in the The Country Gentlemen. He recorded on the band's influential album New Look, New Sound (1970) before leaving to co-found II Generation in 1971. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he played witjwith J.D. Crowe and the New South, Country Store, and the contemporary acoustic quartet Spectrum alongside Béla Fleck. He later spent eleven years as a member of the Tony Rice Unit. In the 1990s he co-founded the folk-bluegrass band Chesapeake with Mike Auldridge. His half-century of contributions to the genre was honored with an induction into the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America’s (SPBGMA) Hall of Greats in 2005.
In the newsletter
- No. 13 Fall 1997