I guess you could say Leftover Salmon have always swum upstream.

Sure, puns abound, like how the veteran group is set to jam at Sweetwater Performance Pavilion with The Infamous Stringdusters on Saturday, June 1. However, the band’s name is memorable and one that has left an indelible mark on progressive bluegrass, a genre that dabbles in bluegrass, jam, rock, calypso, and everything in between.

“ ‘Jam band’ means a people with a lot of hair are going to be at the show,” co-founder Vince Herman joked during a recent phone call.

“We call ourselves polyethnic Cajun slamgrass music. It’s kind of pigeon-holed us into a very wide hole. So, we’re pretty much allowed to do what we want to do by design.”

Progressing

The story of Leftover Salmon can begin with Herman heading to Boulder, Colorado, after attending West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1985.

“There’s a lot of old-time music and that type of stuff in West Virginia, but not a lot of opportunities to play: Not a lot of work,” the vocalist and guitarist said. “I kind of thought that Colorado might have some of that.

“I was just looking for a little more progressive bluegrass scene. The Telluride Bluegrass Festival and some of the other stuff going on in Colorado seemed to be the right territory for that type of stuff. And it certainly was.”

As legend has it, Herman met his future bandmate, Drew Emmitt (his “brother from another mother,” he said), on his first night in town.

“I rolled into a bar that had a sign saying, ‘Bluegrass music tonight,’ and I met Drew there,” Herman said of the vocalist and mandolin and fiddle player. “A couple years later, I was in The Left Hand String Band, the band that was playing there (that night).”

After playing alongside Emmitt in The Left Hand String Band, Herman went on to form his own group, The Salmon Heads, where he mixed Cajun, calypso, ska, and bluegrass into a large batch of musical gumbo.

On New Year’s Eve 1989, The Left Hand String Band and Salmon Heads came together for a show that would lead to the formation of Leftover Salmon.

“We thought it would be a one-off and called it Leftover Salmon,” Herman said of the show. “Thirty-five years later, we could have probably thought of a better name.”

Strong response

With the bands united, Leftover Salmon quickly found a following in Colorado.

“When we started, there wasn’t a lot of that bluegrass stuff being done in bars,” Herman said. “It was kind of a festival sort of thing. So, we added drums and added more of a rock n’ roll attitude.”

That rock n’ roll attitude seemed to be exactly what folks in those Colorado bars were looking for. It made the band into one of the first in the “jamgrass” genre.

“A lot of people being on vacation and having fun,” Herman said of the crowds. “If you wanna have fun, we can help you with that.”

After a few years, the band decided to get into the studio, where they recorded their 1993 debut, Bridges to Bert.

“After our first gig, we had five or six more lined up because all the bar owners talk to each other and have music,” Herman said. “After doing that for a little bit, it just seemed natural to make a record. We had our guitar hero, Charles Sawtelle, produce our first record. We were able to scrounge up enough money to make it.”

Leftover Salmon have now released 12 studio albums, with four coming between 1993 and 1999. The last of those is The Nashville Sessions, which features appearances from some of the top names in the industry, including Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Waylon Jennings, Taj Mahal, Lucinda Williams, and Randy Scruggs, who also produced it. 

“It was kind of like a musical Fantasy Island,” Herman said. “We got to work with Randy Scruggs as a producer. He was just amazing and brought our whole wish list of people we wanted to work with to the table.” 

Staying Fresh

Proving Leftover Salmon can stay fresh, the group, which includes bassist Greg Garrison, banjo player Andy Thorn, drummer Alwyn Robinson, and Jay Starling on Dobro, released Grass Roots in May 2023.

The album definitely jams and features guest appearances by Billy Strings and Oliver Wood, who was recently in town with The Wood Brothers.

“We made it in Nashville and thought we could call up a couple Nashville friends to do some guest spots on it,” Herman said. “Billy was nice enough to come hang. We’ve known Billy a long, long time, and Oliver, too. It was just nice to add something a little extra here and there — and Darol Anger also played fiddle on it. It was a real treat to have those guys, just playing some bluegrass.

“With the Billy stuff, we didn’t really know what we were going to do. We just kind of got into the studio and decided (the Bob Dylan song) ‘Nashville Skyline Rag’ would be a good one to do, and, of course, Billy just ripped it up with no rehearsal.

“Sometimes it’s a definite process. Sometimes you just go in and wing it. We did that with Oliver, too — just came up with the song on the spot.”

It’s that kind of creativity that keeps Leftover Salmon relevant. It’s also what keeps Herman going.

“It’s the most fun I know how to have,” he said. “I’m really lucky to be able to make it with such a cool cast of characters.”

“The well of American music is real deep,” he added. “There’s so many branches of it, and we’re just psyched to be able to get out there and play some calypso, play some Cajun, play some reggae, play some bluegrass, play some blues. It’s all American music. The borders between genre don’t really mean much to us.”

And although the show at Sweetwater will have reserved seating, that does not mean you won’t be able to move.

“We like a good chair dance as much as the next guy,” Herman said.