Mitch Corbin

Mitch grew up in a musical family in Sulfur, Louisiana. They performed around Southwest LA and Southeast TX as "Red Corbin and the Corbin Copies". Dad on banjo, Mom played guitar, brother John on Bass and his sisters Sondra, Susan and Sheri all joined in. His Dad had a bluegrass radio show every Sunday and there were always people coming around to pick.

In 68'۪ and 69'۪ the family traveled to Bill Monroe'۪s Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival for summer vacation.Some of his early influences were Doc Watson, Clarence White, Red Smiley and Django Reinhardt. He spent a lot of time learning solos from other instruments on the guitar. Jethro Burns, Alan Munde, Stephane Grappelli and Byron Berline were some of his favorites to copy.He moved to Chicago in 1979 to play with The Special Consensus and felt fortunate to be a part of Greg Cahill'۪s album "Lone Star" with guests Byron Berline and Jethro Burns.

From Chicago, he moved to Peoria, IL to play with Applegate and Company and also got to perform some with Suzy Bogguss. He later toured with Suzy while living in Nashville for a short time.More recently Mitch played with David Bromberg and thanks to David he was a part of the David Grisman'۪s Tone Poets CD.

While playing with David, Mitch got to be on stage with some of his favorites like Jerry Douglas, Tim O'۪Brien, Sam Bush, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou Harris and he was thrilled to get to sing with Linda Ronstadt at the Fillmore West. David was always one of his heroes.The last band he played with was The Byron Berline Band.

Mitch met Byron as a child when the band Byron played with ended up at the Corbin house for an all night jam. Mitch'۪s Dad recorded it all and a couple of years later Mitch was listening to the recordings and heard Byron playing some amazing guitar on a few tunes. He immediately started trying to figure them out.

These days Mitch spends most of his time at home building guitars. His Dad has been building instruments since the mid 60'۪s. Mitch started his first guitar in 1999 while living in Orlando, FL. He decided to do it full time with some help from his friend Lynn Dudenbostel.

One of Mitch'۪s favorite things to do is hang out at Lynn'۪s shop and watch him work. He'۪s played almost every guitar and mandolin to come off the Dudenbostel bench over the last couple of years and is always floored by the sound of Lynn'۪s instruments.

After getting to know some of the flatpickers at Kamp over the last couple of years Mitch looks forward to being a teacher for the fourth time so he can learn a thing or two and make some new friends.