Jack Tottle
John Walter "Jack" Tottle (born November 24, 1939) is a mandolinist, singer, songwriter, teacher, and author from Baltimore. He studied at Dartmouth College and formed the Lonesome River Boys in the early 1960s. The band recorded Raise a Ruckus in 1961. He joined Don Stover and the White Oak Mountain Boys in the early 1970s and settled in Boston. His instruction book Bluegrass Mandolin came out in 1975, and his debut solo album, Back Road Mandolin, followed in 1976. That year he formed the progressive bluegrass band Tasty Licks, which included banjo player Béla Fleck and recorded two albums before breaking up in July 1979. In 1982 he founded the Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Music Program at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee, the first full bluegrass studies program at a four-year university. His students there included Kenny Chesney, and he led a student cultural exchange trip to Russia. He retired as director in 2007, and Raymond W. McLain took over the program. His album The Bluegrass Sound (1999) features sixteen of his compositions. IBMA gave him its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2020. ETSU created the Jack Tottle Scholarship Endowment in 2021 and gave him an honorary doctorate in 2022, for the program's 40th anniversary. He lives in Hawaii.
In the newsletter
Wrote
- Women in Bluegrass: A University Perspective (No. 3)