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Blue Northern is a five piece band from Maine playing traditional, original, and contemporary acoustic music. Featuring vocals from four of the members, instrumentation includes guitar, upright bass, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, and tenor guitar.

The group was formed by the confluence of countless musical coincidences, whereby pickers with a love of acoustic music would gather over burnt frozen pizza and fresh green olives and play our hearts out just for the heck of it. Gradually we decided, "Hey, you know, this doesn’t sound so bad! Let’s take it on the road.” So here we are.

Stand next to Paul Anderson in a picking circle and you will soon experience the full power of the rhythmic ‘chop’. He has played with a few Maine bluegrass acts over the years including The Kinsman Ridgerunners, The Mud Cove Ramblers, and The Johnny Combo. In 1989 he started the bluegrass radio program "Bronzewound" on WERU-FM out of Blue Hill, Maine and hosted the program for 8 years. In Blue Northern, Paul plays mandolin and guitar, and sings lead & harmony vocals.

Pete Henry Davis began his musical exploits in Maine with a move to Islesboro, which brought Pete into contact with many midcoast musicians. Many a dance hall has been electrified by his guitar playing over the past couple of decades. Bands have included a previous rock and roll incarnation of Blue Northern, Sick Puppy, The Perfect Erasers, Low Tide, Regal Zonephone, and Delco Ray. He is much in demand as an accompanyist, and can be frequently seen with Katie Webber. Pete sings lead and harmony vocals, and plays guitar, tenor guitar, bass, and almost anything else you put in his hands. His solo material can be found over to saddledog.com

David Manski has been playing bluegrass music for years - mostly though, as a DJ on radio. During the last 8 years, he has been co-host of Bronzewound on WERU-FM, where he took over for Paul. He reports monthly to Bluegrass Unlimited's National Bluegrass Survey Chart, and has also hosted bluegrass radio programs in MA and TX. David plays bass and contra bongo in Green Mountain Railway, a high-energy MDI-based old-tyme fiddle and celtic dance band, and has played and recorded with Kate Wegner and Chuck Donnelly, where he contributes bass and clawhammer banjo. In Blue Northern, David provides the low-end rhythmic anchor with his 1950's Kay model S-1.

Gregg TeHennepe started out on the flute in fifth grade, but transitioned to electric guitar for his later teen years. After a stint of heavy metal in high school and electric lead guitar in several rock and blues bands at Carleton College followed by a ten-year musical hiatus, he became a bluegrass fan thanks to his wife who encouraged him to get a dobro in 1994. Past bands have included Josh and the Senators and The Mud Cove Ramblers (where he met Paul), he also sings and plays with the Johnsonless Mountain Boys over to Franklin, ME. Gregg plays dobro and occasional guitar with Blue Northern, and sings lead and harmony vocals.

Jim Coffman's research on sea urchins brought him from the midwest to the coast of Maine, where he and Gregg discovered they were both alums of Carleton College in Minnesota, and had just barely missed playing music together in The Cave. He was a founding member of the Laughing Crinoids, a progressive bluegrass band in Durham, NC in the late 80s, and played cabaret with MEWS and the Small Band in Los Angeles in the 90s. A multi-instrumentalist, Jim spends most of his time in Blue Northern on the fiddle, singing harmonies and an occasional lead.