Today we’d like to introduce you to Bobby Sweet.
Bobby is a sixth-generation musician. He began performing at age seven in his father’s band. As a performer, he has shared the bill with many top country and folk artists, including Vince Gill, Bill Staines, Martin Sexton, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Jonathan Edwards. As a sought-after lead guitarist he has played shows opening for George Jones, Diamond Rio, Asleep at the Wheel, Willie Nelson, The Bellamy Brothers, Waylon Jennings and many others.
In 2011, he was selected as a New Folk finalist at Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, TX. Bobby’s songs have also received honorable mentions from The New York Songwriter’s Circle Songwriting Contest, The UK Songwriting Contest, The Billboard Songwriting Contest, and The Mountain Stage NewSong Contest. He has written songs that have aired on many hit television series including Nashville, Touched By An Angel, Walker Texas Ranger, CSI and Judging Amy. His instrumental and vocal work have been featured on recordings by Arlo Guthrie, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and a host of other independent album projects.
He recently returned home from his fourth U.S. tour playing guitar on Arlo Guthrie’s 50th Anniversary of Alice’s Restaurant tour. While traveling with Guthrie, he performed at landmark venues such as Carnegie Hall, the New Orleans Jazz Fest and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.
Bobby, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born into a musical family. Music goes back six generations on my dad’s side, so it was just naturally what I grew up thinking one does. I got my start playing in my dad’s band when I was seven years old. I guess I’d say what brought me to where I am now has been my love of playing music and 35 years of writing songs and meeting other musicians, writers and people in the business.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No, it has not always been a smooth road, and there are still (rare) times when I might question the sanity of my career choice, but I feel that the struggles can be put to good use if I just view them as a lesson to be learned…even if the lesson is just to see them not as struggles. I think having a positive attitude is one of the most important assets one can possess.
I recall early on in my songwriting days, I thought I wanted to be a staff songwriter. I eventually landed a songwriting deal in Nashville. I did a lot of commuting to Tennessee in those days. I was suddenly on the inside! Rather than going around town playing my tunes for publishers and getting rejected all of the time, I was now part of a team. Well, the deal only lasted a year, and in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened to my songwriting. Don’t get me wrong, at the time I was devastated, but losing the deal gave me back my artistic freedom and inspired me to start making my own albums. Suddenly it dawned on me how little sense it made to be waiting for a company to think my songs were commercial enough for people hear them.
Please tell us about Bobby Sweet.
I am a singer-songwriter. I do a lot of performing in the region both with my band and in different smaller configurations. I also produce other artists from my home studio and am a multi-instrumentalist. Occasionally I’m on tour with Arlo Guthrie playing lead guitar and fiddle in his band. I did a lot of sideman work before I started making my own albums, so that’s a job in which I have a lot of experience. Through my connections on the West Coast, I’ve written tunes for film and TV.
My latest obsession is violin building…a perfect marriage of woodworking and music. I even figured out how to bring my tools on the road while on tour with Arlo. I carved three violins on the 50th Anniversary of Alice’s Restaurant tour, which ran about a year and a half. I recently had a show at the Guthrie Center where I displayed my violins in the lobby for those who were curious about the craft of violin building.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of my earliest childhood memories is my dad’s band practicing at our house. I must have only been about four or five years old. My bedroom was upstairs on the second floor of the old house, which seemed to be eternally under construction…my dad was a famous starter of great renovation projects! Three steps down the stairway, there was a landing, and there was no back on those three stairs, which afforded a view of the living room where the guys would practice. I would slide out of bed and go sit on that landing and spy on the music-making happening below. I played a few weeks back with an old band mate of my dad’s from those years. He said to me that night, “Every time I look over at you, I see that little kid staring down through the stairs at us all those years ago.” He remembered, as we both did, that eventually my mom would catch me and shoo me off to bed yet again.
Contact Info:
- Website: bobbysweet.com
- Email: bobbyswt@gmail.com
Image Credit:
Pink shirt performance photo: Lee Everett/Fineline
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