Alan Senauke – photo © Dorothy Brown
Lifelong bluegrass guitarist and singer Alan Senauke died on December 22, 2024 at 77 years of age, and we failed to note his passing at the time. To remedy that fact, a number of his friends and fellow musicians have shared some remembrances which we gather here to honor his life and contributions to the west coast bluegrass scene.
Alan was born in Brooklyn into a secular Jewish family, but he moved after college to the California Bay Area, where he was soon studying Zen Buddhism. He became a Sōtō priest and eventually the Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. His life, both in New York and San Francisco, was marked by social, anti-war, and civil rights activism as much as it was music
In his musical life Senauke was involved in a number of notable groups from the 1970s-’90s, including The Fiction Brothers, the Blue Flame String Band, The Bluegrass Intentions, High Country, and The Bay Ramblers.
But let’s have his friends and musical associates share the story, starting with his Fiction Brothers partner, Howie Tarnower.
“I met Alan in 1972 answering an ad on a bulletin board at Bud’s Ice Cream in San Francisco: “Wanted, a banjo player to play bluegrass.’ I was new in San Fran and actually new to the US, having recently returned from years of wandering around Asia as a Peace Corps volunteer, college student, itinerant musician, and hippie backpacker. From the first time we met I was struck by Alan’s singing — usually an afterthought to most northern bluegrass players at that time (this was before Internet, YouTube, even CDs) when most of us were still trying to figure out how to play these weird instruments.
Anyway, from the beginning Alan had a strong commitment to the songs, where they came from, what they meant, and what they felt like. And from that first meeting something clicked in our duet singing, which was soon the centerpiece of a couple of gigs around town. We decided we were a fictitious brother duet and when Peter Wernick was visiting California he persuaded us to move east and be a real band.
In the following years we clocked thousands of miles touring around the country, on the road way more than we were home in Ithaca, NY — a mini hotbed of folk/old time/bluegrass music at the time. We had many great times and plenty of not so great times. As a duet we played lots of folk clubs, colleges, and coffeehouses. I wonder now how we found our way around the country and a bunch of times in Europe, without such things as cell phones or GPS, but it did add to the adventure. We met all sorts of great musicians along the way, and could easily transform into a full band. We were often surprised by how many great players we met in unlikely places (Finland, Sweden, and Holland in particular); this was all before the Internet. I remember one tour where we became a trio with a fabulous young Indian musician, Krishna Bhatt, on tabla and sitar. Whatever the context, we could always depend on Alan’s carefully crafted vocals, his serious search and selection of meaningful material, and always just-right guitar playing.
One clear memory was when we were somewhere south and Alan tells me he has written to Tommy Jarrell and he has invited us to visit. He seemed to really like our duet singing and invited us to stay over for several days and nights of tunes, stories, and songs, several of which Alan continued to perform and record.
Even though we wound up on opposite ends of the country I will continue to miss him. Our occasional visits and musical reunions were always fun and meaningful.”
Sandy Rothman is a prominent California banjo player and producer who has experience with many important first and second generation bluegrass artists like Bill Monroe, Larry Sparks, Earl Taylor, Red Allen, and The Kentucky Colonels.
His assistance in collecting these various memories of Alan was crucial to this compilation, and we thank him for it.
Here are his recollections.
“Alan was a consummate musical polyglot, equally at home in a wide variety of forms and genres. In bluegrass vernacular, he was ‘a hoss rhythm guitarist.’ I think that will be evident to anybody who listens to him with the Fiction Brothers, the Blue Flame String Band, High Country, the Bay Ramblers, his Cajun recordings, his duet work with Eric Thompson, and so many other sources. Somewhat less well known is his soulful lead guitar playing, shown to great effect on the duets and his recordings with High Country. Alan wasn’t afraid to get up on the high strings of the guitar for bluesy licks even without a second guitar backing him up. He was a hoss in that way too!
In his work as an activist for peace and justice—before and during his years as an engaged Buddhist—Alan likewise bridged a number of cultures. He visited and spent time in disadvantaged communities around the world, notably the Far East. People there remember him and his work with fondness. In his inspiring book, Turning Words (2023, Shambhala Publications) Alan introduces friends, family, and teachers he has known, including some from these distant lands. His music reflects this worldwide consciousness.
Along with his numerous trips to India, Myanmar, and other places in Southeast Asia, Alan spent time at Zen temples in Japan for his training. As a rare bluegrass-picking Zen student (and later scholar), he combined these visits with concerts and club gigs with many Japanese bluegrass musicians. One in particular was the gifted and influential Yoshihiro Arita (known as Hiro), a highly advanced progressive banjoist who also studied jazz guitar in the US at the Berklee School of music.”
Yoshihiro Arita also shared these thoughts.
“I met Alan for the first time in 1984 in Boston. I had just moved from Japan to study jazz guitar at the Berklee College of Music, and soon moved into a locally well-known musician’s house where Alan used to live. That house on Leicester Street had the nickname, ‘Leicester Flat,’ and its previous house members had performed gigs as a band of that name. Alan stopped by at the house during the Blue Flame String Band’s tour from San Francisco to visit his former (and my current) roommate, Howie Tarnower. Alan and I soon became good friends and played together whenever he was in Boston.
The album, Things Are Coming My Way (1979), by Alan and Howie (The Fiction Brothers) made a huge impact on me when I was in Japan. The blend of deeply-rooted songs by The Delmore Brothers, and more contemporary songs by Si Kahn or Jesse Winchester, and the playing of cutting-edge New York City musicians like Marty Cutler and Matt Glaser, suggested a unique urban way of bluegrass arrangement. Alan’s rock ‘n’ roll-influenced guitar break on Broken Hearted Lover was an instant classic to me.
In 1987 I toured in Europe on banjo with Alan as the Fiction Brothers Band, along with Howie and bassist Eric Levenson. One of our well-received songs was George Gershwin’s Summertime. It owed a lot to Alan’s bluesy guitar accompaniment.
Alan’s wide musical tastes from old time, Cajun, blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and even Greek traditional music, influenced me. He favored the music of Earl Taylor, Buzz Busby, and Jimmy Martin, and that hardcore bluegrass music came out through him with a touch of thoughtful Zen sensitivity. I have sensed uniquely emotional depth in his music when I played with him. The feeling to me transcended our nationalities and geographic backgrounds.
After I returned to Japan, Alan often visited here for Zen training. In 2008 he and I had a bluegrass tour in Tokyo and Osaka with some fine Japanese players. During the tour, he touched many people’s heart with his music along with his warm, thoughtful personality. We got together for the last time in 2018, at the memorial of our mutual close friend Jon Sholle. Alan was one of my big bluegrass mentors in my musical growth. I feel fortunate to have known him and played music together as one of his fiction cousins.”
Matt Glaser has been a major fiddle dude since the 1970s, recording and performing with most everyone in New England. Until recently he served as the Director of the Strings Department at the Berklee College of Music, for a total of 28 years, before taking over their American Roots Music program.
“Alan was a deep, multifaceted person, and playing music with him naturally connected one to many of his other interests and influences. I had the opportunity to play on a country single he recorded, the Webb Pierce song Honky Tonkin’. His dear friend Jon Sholle played astonishing electric guitar.
I loved hearing Alan sing the plaintive lyrics about the poor guy who couldn’t sleep “because the band kept playing in the joint underneath.” One could easily imagine Alan being in that situation!
Alan had such vast riches within himself! All that music! All that learning! All that spiritual depth!”
Everyone in bluegrass knows Kathy Kallick, as a singer, songwriter, and bandleader on the west coast.
“My history with Alan Senauke has chapters and eras.
When I decided to make a recording for children, I asked Alan to produce the project. That was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Alan was thoughtful, funny, had great ideas, great ears, and went along with my wacky ideas. When we made a second album for kids, we were both expecting our second babies in the summer after we finished recording, which gave us a special connection. Alan played beautiful guitar on that project as well as adding the excellent sound effect of a bat hitting a ball on the Jackie Robinson song. I learned so much about production from these two experiences with Alan. Learned to follow my instincts, but temper that with realistic expectations.
But I would not give up on my idea of bagpipes on the lullaby.
Alan: ‘You mean the war pipes?’
Me: ‘No, just bagpipes. Like, Scottish bagpipes.’
Alan: ‘Yes, those are the war pipes.’
Me: ‘Ah. Maybe as though they’re far away.’
Alan: ‘Yes, maybe really far away.’
Those bagpipes at the end of On My Way Back Home still thrill me. And Alan’s suggestion to invite Sue Draheim to add the sweetest fiddling was perfect.
One time Alan wanted to sell me one of his guitars. I asked him why he would part with such a cool guitar. He said he got another even cooler guitar and couldn’t keep both. He wanted it to ‘stay in the family.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I can’t have any more guitars.’ He said, OK, but would I hold it while he got a beer?
Oh, that tricky trickster!
I strummed a chord on that 1943 D18 and it resonated through my bones. I was a goner. I still insisted Peter would probably dissuade me so Alan suggested I take it home and let Peter play it, and keep it for a week. I came home and put the guitar in Peter’s lap, telling him Alan wanted us to buy it. Peter said he didn’t think we needed any more guitars. I said, ‘Well, give it a strum.’ And I left the room. When I came back, he looked up and said, ‘Oh darlin’, you’ve got to get this guitar.’
After 9/11 I was sinking, and flailing around in anxiety. I called Alan and asked for his help. He invited me to come over right away. The things he told me really calmed me down. Look for the light. There will be light. Look for little ways to help somebody, anybody. There have always been dark times and there is also light. Live in the moment.
These are things I remember.
When disasters strike, when my heart gets broken, when I’m terribly scared, I recall Alan’s calm wisdom and it helps me.
Without him here, I feel like a very warm, bright light has been dimmed. But then I look at the little quote from his celebration of life: ‘Let us meditate, investigate, strategize, and act. Then let us look again, correct our course, and go forward. What is to be done? Well, many things. For now, may we keep on despite heartbreak and loss.’
May we indeed.”
New York progressive and jazz banjoist Marty Cutler also spent time with Senauke.
“I first met Alan around 1975 or so. I was with the Wretched Refuse Stringband at the time, and we were playing a Manhattan folk club: The Focus. Jody Stecher (who I knew since my early Washington Square days) was there, and I think Jody brought Alan to the club to see us. Alan was looking to put the Fiction Brothers Band together, and he approached me to play some gigs with them. We played clubs and a few festivals in upstate New York, including Smokey Greene’s festival, at which I was cajoled to entering a banjo contest to provide extra cash to the band kitty. I don’t recall whether I won or placed, but The Fiction Brothers entered and won the band contest. It was very cold that evening, and I had to keep my hands warm with several cups of hot coffee.
Traveling with Alan and Howie Tarnower (the other Fiction Brother) was a process; it took a while for me (and Kenny Kosek) to warm up to the two, who at first related to us somewhat remotely, and the two seemed rather serious and somber. The two ‘brothers’ often had quarrels about one thing or another; nothing serious, but enough for me and Kenny to work up imaginary Lovecraftian Tales about the two being creatures from another dimension whose quibbles eventually turned into angry buzzing and clicking sounds, losing their cool until their waxen, humanoid masks fell off.
Long car trips eroded the barriers, and we became good friends, Alan and Howie sitting in with Wretched Refuse when they were in New York. Those gigs would either loosen you up or cause you to run, screaming. Luckily Alan’s often dark sense of humor fit in perfectly.
Alan later moved to Brooklyn and we played a lot of local gigs, as well as backing Hazel Dickens when she was in town. Matt Glaser eventually took up many of the fiddle chores for the Fiction Brothers Band. Another memorable gig was playing at the Hudson River Revival Festival, where we also backed Rose Maddox, Steve Goodman, and the great dancer, Sandman Simms.
Alan eventually moved to Boston, and later to California, but we played gigs intermittently when he was in town. Much later, when my wife and I moved to California, I reconnected with Alan who introduced me to the rich Bay Area bluegrass scene, inviting me to picking parties and hiring me for a bunch of contra dance gigs with Ray Bierl.
I recorded one track, Broken-Hearted Lover, for the second Fiction Brothers album, and as much as my Cannonball Adderley-influenced solo gained me some notoriety as a picker, I am always struck by Alan’s simpler, direct-to the heart guitar solo as the high point of that recording; so it was with most of my musical endeavors with Alan.
I will miss Alan greatly in my musical and personal life.”
Suzy Thompson is the Director of Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, and she and her husband, Eric Thompson, played and recorded a good bit with Alan.
“Eric and I met Alan when we were living around Ithaca in 1978. We had come there to play in the Backwoods Band with Mac Benford. Alan and Howie were both living in Ithaca, touring as the Fiction Brothers. The Fiction Brothers and the Backwoods Band both came to an end at around the same time, and by then we had formed Blue Flame with Alan and Kate.
We moved back to the Bay Area (Kate was still living in San Francisco) and Alan did too. Blue Flame was an amazing band, Kate and Alan sang together so beautifully and we were able to explore a very wide range of music, venturing quite far from bluegrass and old-time to encompass Cajun, Greek, jug band, and other oddities including Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s arrangement of Blues Stay Away From Me. This was before Graceland and nobody had heard of Ladysmith Black Mambas at that point.
Alan and Eric really bonded as guitar players and they loved making music together — their guitar duet arrangements were really beautiful, especially some of the ethnic pieces like the Swedish polska and the rembetika improvisations.
When we were in Blue Flame, lots of people used to ask Alan and I if we were brother and sister. He looked like he could be a member of my family and photos of his father resemble photos of my father; they could be brothers. I feel sure we are genetically related in some way!
He was truly a brother to me and Eric.”
Farewell to Alan Senauke. May he rest in peace.
