Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival!

by Tim Newby

For thirty years, Leftover Salmon has blended musical styles from rock and bluegrass to zydeco and Cajun into an undeniably original sound and forever influenced generations of bands from across the musical spectrum. Emerging from the progressive bluegrass world and coming of age as one the original jambands, Leftover Salmon rose to become architects of what has become known as Jamgrass—a style in which bluegrass can break free through nontraditional instrumentation and stylistic experimentation. In this book, Tim Newby presents an intimate portrait of Leftover Salmon through its band members, family, friends, former bandmates, managers, and countless musicians.

Leftover Salmon was born from the heart and soul of America itself, playing music that reflects the sounds emanating from the Appalachian hills, the streets of New Orleans, the clubs of Chicago, the plains of Texas, and the mountains in their home state of Colorado. Newby reveals Leftover Salmon's story as one that is crucialto American music and needs to be told now.

Genres: Music

408 pages, Hardcover

Published February 8, 2019

About the author

Tim Newby is a writer and educator. He is the author of three books, (U. Press of Kentucky, 2024), Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), and Bluegrass in Baltimore: The Hard Drivin' Sound & its Legacy (McFarland, 2015).

The Original Louisville Slugger is a Finalist for the prestigious CASEY award, given to the book that provides the greatest contribution to baseball literature that year. In 2016 Bluegrass in Baltimore was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections for excellence in Best Research in Recorded Country Music. In January 2017 it was named one of the thirty best books about bluegrass music by About Great Books.

He has also contributed to the Phish Companion A Guide to the Band & Their Music (Backbeat Books, 2004), One-Win Wonders (SABR, 2024), and The 1964 Buffalo Bills: Profiles of the AFL Champions (McFarland, 2025).

In 2023 Newby co-curated "Ola Belle Reed: I’ve Endured," an exhibition at the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery on the campus of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. The exhibition explored the life and work of nationally recognized bluegrass musician Ola Belle Reed and contextualized her achievements within a history of migration from rural Appalachia north in the twentieth century.

Newby's work has appeared in a variety of publications including Bluegrass Unlimited, Paste, Relix, AmericanaUK, Inside Lacrosse, and Honest Tune.

He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and daughter.

Reviews

[David Ward]

Leftover Salmon: Thirty Years of Festival! by Tim Newby (Rowman & Littlefield 2019) (781.64) (3846).

I’m a jam band guy. I grew up on bluegrass and on the music of the Grateful Dead, and I am hardcore Deadhead of many years' standing. There’s also a lot to love about the jam band Leftover Salmon, as Tim Newby’s account clearly demonstrates.

Newby structured this book around chapter-long biographies of each current and former Leftover Salmon band member. His research was so thorough that each chapter is crammed with so much information about the musicians that even their own mothers probably don’t know all of the background facts and stories.

In addition to reporting on Leftover Salmon, the book supplies a great store of information about other jam bands and musicians who specialize in live performances in the same genre of Americana and bluegrass. Newby slips in references to other jam bands and musicians whose level of fame ranges from legendary to obscurity.

Thanks and a tip of the cap are due to author Tim Newby for a book well done and to the former members of Leftover Salmon for the hours and years of listening pleasure and rambunctious live performances.

My rating: 7/10, finished 8/10/23 (3846).

[William Graney]

Until recently, I was a marginal Leftover Salmon fan. I'd seen them a couple of times, but a recent performance blew me away and led me to dig deeper into their music catalog and read this book. While reading, I was wishing that I had become more of a fan earlier (I'm older than they are). I think it would have been a rewarding life experience to be focused on Salmon throughout their career. I'll just have to be content with my status as a late comer to the party.
The book is a fun, quick read, the pages just fly by. The author certainly did his homework and even though it's obvious he was passionate about the project, he never comes off like a gushing fan. It was a very entertaining read and I'm glad I picked up the book.
The negatives, in my opinion, are that the format seemed a little off; chapters named after band members often veered away from the topic and repeated tales that had been told in previous chapters. Also, for a book that came out of a publishing house, I think they could have taken a closer look at the editing. As an independent author, I do all my own edits and invariably, I miss things (which people love to point out), so I tend to give writers some leeway in that regard, but when you have publishing team, there should be closer attention to detail. Small complaints though, a fascinating read and and a hearty congratulations to the author on a job very well done!

[Brian Beatty]

Great oral history of a great band. Long live the fish!

[Bid Pipson]

A informative, in-depth look at not only the band, but also the jamband scene they were part of and the jamgrass scene they helped inspire.

[Bill]

As a longtime fan of Salmon there was lot of stuff I didn't know about them in the book. The book answers every question you may have about the band. Even if you are not as familiar with Salmon, the book is a great peek into what 80's Boulder looked like and the history of the Colorado bluegrass scene, as well as looking at the post-Dead jamband scene that took root on the HORDE tours in the early 90s. Lots of music history included that should keep the interest of a wide range of music fans.