Alan Bond and his mandolins

1953-1980 | 1999-2003 | 2003-2006 | 2007-2008

Alan Bond's Mandolins

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The Alan Bond Story Doing my time in Davis California. Pictured here at four with my loving brother Steven. The Grateful Dead song "Saint Steven" may have been written about him, but I don't think so. Alan left (devil) and brother Steven (angel) 1957 Finally moved from Davis in around 1969. My last year of High School was served in Hastings Nebraska. Nebraska is were I got my first mandolin. It was an old 1918 Gibson A. I remember driving to Lincoln Nebraska in my parents Skylark to buy the Gibson A model from a guy who was a house wrecker. He had found it in the attic of a house he was tearing down. I was inspired by seeing the High Woods String Band at the college in Hastings Nebraska. I soon had a dream of playing old-time and Bluegrass Music. By 1973 I was back in California. I went to CCAC in Oakland, the same school that Rich Wilber had gone to. In 1975 I made the big move into Berkeley California. By this time I had an F2 Gibson.

In 1977 I sold everything I had and borrowed some money to buy the Stan Miller F5 mandolin I still use. Pictured here with the new Stan Miller mandolin in about 1978. See a full length version of this picture>

1981

During this time I played in Oakum a Berkeley hippie, bluegrass and western swing group. Oakum played at the California Bluegrass Association's Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival in 1979 and 1982.

Here's Oakum in about 1979. Beth Weil on bass, Paul McBride playing guitar, Brian Godchaux fiddling and me on mandolin. More pictures of Oakum Somehow by 1984 I had a kid, my son Jesse James Bond and worked in a real job as a graphic designer in Berkeley. I moved to Richmond California for awhile and did the family thing. That was a bit of a dry spell for my mandolin playing. By 1992 I got out of Richmond and was able to come back to Berkeley and started playing Bluegrass mandolin again.

and the story continues... 1953-1980 | 1999-2003 | 2003-2006 | 2007-2008

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