A Brief History of the Tortolita Gutpluckers
The unlikely 30+ year musical association of anthropologists, biologists and doctors began with Nick, Jim and Dave playing a weekly on-campus gig for students and fellow faculty during their lunch hour. Over the next few years Lane, Diamond Jim and Bill became band regulars and venues for the group ranged from private parties to roadhouses. A perennial favorite at a party held in the Tortolita Mountains near Tucson, the band joined the name of the mountain range with the material that used to comprise the strings they strum, bow and pluck to become the Tortolita Gutpluckers. Despite it’s name, the band does not condone or participate in the evisceration of small doves.
With the members of the band hailing from varied musical backgrounds (if any), the Gutpluckers perform a range of songs that span blue grass, country, folk and string band musical traditions. This lively blend of music, born in the high deserts of Baja Arizona, is a low humidity version of blue grass music, a genre the Gutpluckers call brown thorn music. Trapped by a threat made 25 years earlier to produce a CD before the end of the century, in 1999 the Gutpluckers ventured into a studio and cut “Wanted: Roadkill Stew.” Most at ease playing acoustically in front of small gatherings, the band continues to perform for appreciative audiences.