Once up a time there was a young boy who wanted to play guitar... He pestered his mom so much even only at the age of 6 that she decided to take the lessons herself & give the lessons to him, figuring he wouldn't stick with it. Unfortunately she came home with a Hawaiian guitar lesson plan. Kinda funny since now he loves to dink around with dobros, lap steels & pedal steels, but at the time all he could say was, "no Mom - Roy Rogers, not Don Ho.... Gene Autrey, not Don Ho...." He just wanted to strum while he sang; and he'd been singing since he could talk.
David Alan Trabue, a native of Louisville, Kentucky,
spent his formative years with the wealth of influences the musical center
of the state has to offer. With clubs open till 4:00 A.M. every night
and the diversity a large metropolitan area draws to those venues, Dave
had a huge pool of talent to learn from, such as:
Bluegrass Alliance with Dan Crary
, who Dave regularly opened for with a folk trio at the famous Red Dog
Saloon. New Grass Revival evolved from the Alliance as one of the
premier progressive bluegrass groups and a major influence on that genre.
Dave shared the stage with New Grass often at The Great Midwestern Bluegrass
Hall.
As a crowd warmer for The Osbourne Brothers
, of "Rocky Top" fame, Dave was goaded (by the Great Midwestern's owner)
into throwing his rendition of "Rocky Top" into the second show. Dave lived
to tell about it.
In front of Iron Butterfly, one of Dave's
rock collaborations drew great response from a throng of over 11,000 fans
at Louisville's Memorial Coliseum.
Mark O'Connor, a fiddle virtuoso even when
he was too young to be in the bar (technically, but what the hell) also
had a show with Trabue as an opener.
When he first came to California Dave was back
into his solo format and early on performed on the same billings with
such greats as Spanky & Our Gang, Queen Ida's Bontomps
Zydeco Band, Jesse Colin Young, and Donovan. With fiddle
and mandolin backing Dave has opened for David Grisman, Dave Van Ronk
, Los Lobos, and a San Francisco favorite, Norton Buffalo
.
In the country world, bands of Trabue's have opened
for Hank Snow, The Desert Rose Band, and Holly Dunn
. Recently, while playing guitar and lap-steel at San Francisco's Blue
Lamp Dave had the good fortune to be joined on stage by the lap-steel
great, Freddie Roulette. Trabue's face still hurts from smiling.
And smiling is what he wants from his stage life.
"If I leave the music world having made a few people's lives more enjoyable
and their evenings a little more satisfying through my pickin' and grinnin',
I know I will have had an opportunity that many never get, and I'll leave
feeling pretty darn good about that." Hopefully, though, that won't be
for a long, long time.
Recording credits include:
"Bananas" - A public television series on parenting - Soundtrack writer- lyrics, vocals & guitar.
"Plastic Worms" - Rick St. Charles & Lisa Monet - Pedal steel guitar & background vocals.
"The Big Green Bus" - Television commercial for Humboldt Transit - Actor, singer & guitarist.
"Infinite Distractions" - Davido - Pedal steel guitar.
"Great Highway" - Great Highway - Pedal steel guitar & backup vocals.
"Itch" - Jenny Kerr Band -
Pedal steel guitar & backup vocals.
"Take Cover" - Andrew Freeman - Pedal steel guitar & backup vocals.
"Down, Not Out" - Andrew's newly released CD -
Pedal steel guitar.