Sawtooth Mountain Boys
Bands / Ensembles
The Sawtooth Mountain Boys were a bluegrass band from Oregon, active from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Mandolinist and lead singer Steve Waller, from Sale Creek, Tennessee, and fiddler Mike Eisler, both students at Oregon State University in Corvallis, formed the Virginia Creek Boys in early 1965 with Harry Stayner and Buzz Altman. When Stayner and Altman left for a time, Jim and Bill York joined Waller and Eisler as the Sawtooth Mountain Volunteers, and in 1971 the band became the Sawtooth Mountain Boys, named after the Sawtooth Range of the Rocky Mountains. Early on it had a weekly half-hour live radio show on KLOO in Corvallis, and it became a regular at Northwest bluegrass festivals. The pickin' parties Waller hosted for many years led to the idea for the Oregon Bluegrass Association. A 1993 lineup of Eisler, Waller, banjo player John Van Brocklin, bassist Rollie Champe and guitarist Hal Spence played the Wolf Mountain Bluegrass Festival in Grass Valley, California, and three of its performances appeared on the 1994 CD Live at Grass Valley. Banjo player Mike Stahlman was also a longtime member, and in the mid-1990s the band backed Rose Maddox at the Myrtle Creek Bluegrass Festival. Waller died on June 26, 2015. Spence and Champe later formed Sawtooth & Sons with their sons.
In the newsletter
- No. 29 May 2002