Buffalo Bill and his Bavarian Beer Hunters

BUFFALO BILL and his BAVARIAN BEER HUNTERS is a bit like walking into an old time saloon set straight outta a Louis Lamour novel. Guns may not be a blazin’, but the good times are rollin’ wherever they saddle up.

The cast of characters led by fiddler and lead vocalist Buffalo Bill (aka Mark Carroll), who coincidentally received his namesake because he looks like the one and only Buffalo Bill Cody, stomp a Texas two-step while doe-si-doe’ing around the heart of classic Kentucky bluegrass . Armed with fiddle and mandolin, Carroll’s tunes raise hairs on the back of yer neck as if in an old fashioned stand-off, that inspires a whole lotta drinkin’ and dancin’ and hootin’ and hollerin’ along the way.

The Texas influence could be traced back to Banjo Maniac aka Gregg Bigsby’s early days playing banjo, “The original, unique ‘celebration’ rhythm that I play comes from my R & B background in the 60's. When I first started playing the banjo in 1969 I met Blues Great Mance Lipscomb who invited me to play with him at a local Saturday night dance in Washington On-The-Brazos, Texas and that eye-opening visit made a lasting impression on me and my banjo playing.”

Bigsby and Carroll started playing with The Bavarian Beer Hunters in 2005. While playing often at The Pioneer Bar in Haines, Alaska during the summer commercial fishing seasons, these two took their OLD TIME and COUNTRY MUSIC SHOW to Germany and found themselves in joined by Germans, Jens Zerle the Tallest Bavarian Bluegrass double bass player, Doctor Milk aka Ben Esen on drums and the modern day Bavarian Cowboy, Uwe Schmidt,who holsters a mean electric guitar .

The alliance of Mark Carroll and Gregg Bigsby started as far back as 1972 while hitchhiking through Texas and Louisiana playing a mix of traditional country, Texas blues and folk, fiddle tunes, Cajun, bluegrass, and western. In September of that year, The Willie Nelson entourage picked up the two hitchhiking from Aspen to Santa Fe. With Bigsby on banjo and Carroll on string bass they were invited to the show where they played as a duo and then followed a set with Nelson playing his soon to be hit single, “Good old Mountain Dew”.

Willie Nelson remains an influence today alongside such greats as Woody Guthrie, Bob Wills, and Mance Lipscomb. Bigsby says, “Playing with superstar Willie Nelson inspired us in 1972. Inspiration strikes in all directions when high energy, high powered music is being played . “ Sharing the stage The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Taj Mahal inspires as well. Buffalo Bill and the Bavarian Beer Hunters have played the world including Ferrara, Italy International Buskers Festival, Southeast Alaska State Fair, Fiesta in Santa Fe, and the International Bluegrass Music Association Convention in Nashville.