Phil Johnson is a bluegrass musician in Oregon who recently bought an Ibanez 527 mandolin that quickly became his number one instrument as mandolin player for Eight Dollar Mountain.

IbanezMandolin.com: What do you know about the history of your 527 mandolin and previous owners?
Phil Johnson: The previous owner was Smokey Koelsch, former owner of Smokey’s Records in Salt Lake City. He is our bass player’s father, and never really took up playing the mandolin so it sat around virtually unplayed from when he got it around 1990 until 2008. Smokey’s son Peter was playing bluegrass bass with us in The Mighty Lonesomes and Smokey handed it over to him. Peter showed it to us, and at first I wasn’t really interested because I’d just bought a new Michael Kelly mandolin and was trying to convince myself it was worth it. Luckily it was offered to me a second time about a year later. I just recently talked to Smokey and found out that he purchased it on consignment at Acoustic Music in Salt Lake City, the owner of the store Harden Davis was and still is a good friend of his. The previous owner’s name was Mel Gause (his name was actually on the receipt) and it’s fairly certain that he was the original owner.

IbanezMandolin.com: Share with us the story behind buying your 527 mandolin. It sounds like one of your bandmates almost bought it first?
Phil Johnson: Our banjo player, Thad, had borrowed it for a few months, said he was going to buy it, and sawed off the fingerboard extension, but then decided against the purchase (he opted for a new banjo instead). I took a real hard look at it this time and was blown away by how much better it sounded that the Michael Kelly. I bought it from Peter and have been loving and playing it ever since. I’ve gotten to play a few shows where Smokey has come out to hear it and it always brings a smile to his face to hear how great it sounds and that it’s in good hands.

IbanezMandolin.com: How does David Grisman figure into all of this?
Phil Johnson: The previous owner to me, Smokey, was shopping at Acoustic Music in Salt Lake City, looking at this used mandolin and holding it in his hands when none other than David Grisman walked into the shop. Grisman was in town to play a show that night. Smokey took it as a sign and bought the mandolin on the spot. This was sometime around 1989-90 I believe.

IbanezMandolin.com: How did it sound and play when you first picked it up?
Phil Johnson: I thought it was destiny, this is the greatest sounding mandolin I have ever played. The thing that has really stuck out is the sound of a well-played mandolin. That is something you cannot buy, even with a new $10,000 Gibson, it still needs to be played and opened up. While this instrument sat idle for almost 20 years, the original owner obviously did some good playing on it as evidenced not only by the sound, but also by the wear on the top, and that to me, is priceless. It’s like a perfectly worn in pair of Levis. Generally, the first thing I notice when I pick up other mandolins now is how they need to be broken in. It reminds me of a new set of strings that takes a week or so to sound their best, but a mandolin can take years.

I’m a huge collector of bluegrass vinyl records and I recently had a realization while listening to The Country Gentlemen – Country Songs Old and New (one of my favorite albums by the way). Listening to John Duffy take a break it hit me for the first time that my mandolin actually has a sound like the one on the record, and I’d never heard that before with other mandolins I’d played. It was the tone that I was always wanting to hear, and I’d always assumed it was my playing that needed to be improved. I’m sure part of it has come from my development as a mandolin player, but I think I owe at least half of it is the instrument itself.

IbanezMandolin.com: Do you perform with your Ibanez 527?
Phil Johnson: Proudly! I use it for just about everything except maybe taking it on a camping trip in the woods, I’ve got another one I use for things like that. I’ve been using the 527 exclusively for the past year. Here’s a version of Jesse James you can hear it on.

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IbanezMandolin.com: Tell us about your band?
Phil Johnson: Well, I now play in a band called Eight Dollar Mountain, but the evolution of that band began with the Mighty Lonesomes. The Mighty Lonesomes were a bluegrass quartet that played around Ashland and Southern Oregon for about 3 years. Thad, the banjo player who I mentioned above, is actually a pretty good mandolin player too, and he taught me a lot about tone and technique while playing with him. We learned so much playing together as a band, figuring out harmonies, endings and kickoffs, tempo, you know, all the important stuff. Living here in Southern Oregon, there isn’t a whole lot of live bluegrass music to go see and be inspired by, but we spent so much time sitting around listening to records very intently and the benefit of that cannot be overstated. Last fall it became evident to us all that life was changing for everyone and we decided to call it quits with the band. The guitar player Patrick moved up to Portland and Thad is moving out to North Carolina this spring.

So out of this band Peter (the bass player) and myself were still around the area, and we knew a dobro player named Mark who had played with the Mighty Lonesomes a bit and he kept trying to get us out to jam with him and a guitar player and banjo player that he knew. Eventually we finally did and after that first time it was evident that we had to get a band going, and that’s how Eight Dollar Mountain was born. We’re lining up dates for the spring and summer right now, and have just been confirmed for the Siskiyou Bluegrass Festival at Lake Selmac, OR in July.

Eight Dollar Mountain web site
Eight Dollar Mountain on Blogspot
Eight Dollar Mountain on MySpace