During my formal introduction to Vince Herman, singer/guitarist for Leftover Salmon, he was driving a golf cart solo backstage at the inaugural Mile High Music Festival in 2008. Located at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado (right outside Denver), the festival property is well-known nowadays as the same place Phish hosts its annual Labor Day Weekend blowout.
To preface, Salmon is one of those true musical crossroads acts, the epitome of what it means to be an absolute melting pot of American music. A thick, vibrant thread of bluegrass wrapped around white-hot coils of blues, Cajun, folk, rock and soul, the group has always kept one foot firmly in the traditions of bluegrass, the other in whatever the hell they happily stepped in.
Although I’d never interacted with Herman in person, I recognized him immediately as he slowly cruised by me. With his signature look — as if Santa Claus and the Cheshire Cat morphed into a singular creature with a craving for high-level bluegrass, high-octane tequila and high-quality weed — I knew it was him, so I yelled his name to get his attention. That moment sparked an ongoing conversation and sincere friendship that’s nearing 20 years.
Herman stopped the golf cart, and I caught up to him. He smiled and extended a handshake. I told him I was a journalist based in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area and was covering the festival for State of Mind Music. He knew of the publication from an interview he’d done back on the east coast with one of the other contributing writers at some point a couple years prior.
“Do you mind if I get a couple quick quotes from you?” I asked.
“Sure, no problem, brother,” Herman said. “But, you’ll have to hop on the cart and ride with me as you ask questions. I gotta head over to the sidestage for the Salmon show.”
Rolling along the numerous paths backstage at the massive facility, we headed toward the staging area in the middle of the artificial soccer fields, which were toasty to walk on in the hot, dry mid-July Rocky Mountain sunshine. With the wind in our hair, Herman turned to me and grinned, “Hey, you smoke, man?”
“Sometimes,” I replied.
“Cool, here, get this started for us,” he said, handing me a joint and lighter from his shirt pocket. With the joint lit, we had a handful of minutes to chat. At that time, Salmon was on a comeback run after a hiatus of over two years, from Dec. 31, 2004, through the spring of 2007.
“It’s always fun to get back on the bus and take it for a spin,” Herman chuckled, exhaling smoke in his usual carefree, jovial manner. “I’ve been touring with Great American Taxi and Moonalice the last few months, which has been a great experience for me. But‚ I’m glad to be playing with the old boys again.”
Since that day in 2008 at Mile High, I’ve constantly crossed paths with Leftover Salmon, whether at backwoods festivals around Southern Appalachia and the greater Southeast or whenever I’d find myself in Colorado, with the Rocky Mountains being the ensemble’s homebase since its formation in 1985.
In the mid-1980s, Herman was going to West Virginia University and living in Morganton, specifically in the attic of a house with no heat that he was trying to remodel. With six credits left to complete to graduate, Herman lost interest in school and wanted a change of scenery. It was the fall of 1985, and winter was closing in fast, with Herman not wanting to inhabit the attic any longer.
During that period, Herman was involved in several bluegrass circles and groups in West Virginia, playing guitar and singing, but he wanted something more. With the Telluride Bluegrass Festival being an incubator for progressive bluegrass and the fact that Herman’s musical heroes Hot Rize were located in Boulder, he decided to pack up his things and head to Colorado.
“When I moved to Colorado [in 1985], I was searching for the mythical bluegrass scene [there],” Herman told me backstage at FloydFest 2019. “I pulled into [Boulder] and there was a sign out in front of this bar: Bluegrass Tonight. My buddy and I walked inside. And as soon as we literally got out of the car — after driving from West Virginia to Colorado straight through — Drew’s band, the Left Hand String Band, was playing that night when I walked through the door.
Drew Emmitt, the virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. Herman and Emmitt hit it off immediately and began jamming together often. But, the duo wouldn’t form their own project until a fateful gig on New Year’s Eve 1989 in Crested Butte, Colorado. At that juncture, Emmitt still had the progressive bluegrass act the Left Hand String Band, while Herman fronted the short-lived Salmon Heads.
“When I started the Salmon Heads, it was this Cajun jug band kind of thing, you know?” Herman said. “There ain’t been jug bands around since the 1970s, so I knew I wasn’t creating a mainstream thing.”
On Dec. 31, 1989, a melodic whirlwind came together that still remains. When some of the members of the Salmon Heads didn’t show up for the Crested Butte gig, Herman got hold of Emmitt and asked if he and some of his band could fill in the missing spaces onstage. The chemistry was immediate.
“It was something that I’d be able to find this little niche and hopefully be able to do it for a long time — like some of my role models in the bluegrass and folk worlds, [where] you don’t need a hit,” Herman said. “You don’t need to be a big mainstream success, because it’s building the culture — festival by festival, show by show, keep digging. As John Hartford said, ‘If bluegrass music was any more popular, we’d have to play for people we don’t even know.’”
FloydFest 2019. It’s 2:54 a.m. in the rural backwoods of southwestern Virginia. Backstage at the Devils Backbone Brewing late-night tent. Herman hands me a shot of tequila. With an ear-to-ear grin, Herman then pours himself one, soon raising it high into the air in honor of another rollicking performance. Within the next hour, the contents of the bottle quickly disappear with gusto.
“Well, I just finished my third marriage, but the band is still going,” Herman bursts into laughter. “It’s been over half of my life. It’s such a blessing to still have Drew over there [when we’re onstage]. He and I are the only ones left from the original incarnation.”
Salmon just tore up the late-night tent, tucked in the middle of the rollicking, sprawling festival grounds atop a mountain in the light of the summer moon. The annual event attracts thousands from every corner of America, all in search of mesmerizing Americana, bluegrass, funk and rock acts, FloydFest itself steadily becoming the “gold standard” for such a mesmerizing lineup.
“We knew about three or four years in [Leftover Salmon] that it was a totally ridiculous idea to keep doing this. But, it’s one of those things, you know? It’s in our scene — in bluegrass, Americana and jam music — where the people doing it are doing it because, no matter what, they love it,” Herman says. “So, what it comes down to is that at some point it circles back to the crowd because you’ve kept doing it and they’re still there, still showing up and still wanting to hear what we have to say.”
When asked about how, after all these years and decades later, he’s still up there onstage with Salmon, cranking mightily along to that signature sound they haphazardly, yet meticulously, developed each and every night, Herman paused amid the chaos of the after-hours party swirling around him.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs, man. I’ve been a roofer, cook, fisherman, painter. I’ve done everything, and this is by far the most fun thing I’ve ever been allowed to do. And I know that I get away with it, too,” Herman said. “I’m luckier than hell because every night I get to play onstage with these cats. If I had to audition for this band, I’d never get in. [Laughs]. Lucky as hell, and hopefully we’re able to do this a lot longer — you never want to quit when you get to do this.”
Want to go?
Legendary jamgrass ensemble Leftover Salmon will perform at the Brew Ridge Jam on Friday, Aug. 21, at French Broad River Brewery in Asheville.
The event will run from 4-11 p.m. Opening acts include Empire Strikes Brass, Coyote Rodeo and JR Scarekrow, with special guests Jon Stickley and Jonathan Scales.
Admission is $45 per person. VIP passes are also available. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, visit frenchbroadbrewery.com/outdoor-concert-series.