Before that even happens, here in a little while, I’m going out to California. Tomorrow night, I’ll be on the Jay Leno show with a country entertainer named Derek Bentley. He’s made an acoustic record, his label calls it his bluegrass record. It’s not, so much. I ended up playing slide mandolin on the lead cut. We made a video for it, which will be on in a few weeks. It is called “Up on the Ridge.”

CMT: Most of your performances are at festivals and various outdoor events?

SB: Yeah, once the warm weather hits, you can count on the end of April through the middle of September probably. Of course, we have some auditorium and theater style gigs, but for the most part outdoors in the summertime. It is a good time of year.

CMT: Do you end up playing with the same groups at all of these different festivals? There kinda has to be overlap.

SB: Oh, sure. There’re gonna be some of the same groups at these different festivals. If anything, that is the neat thing about it. We all know each other and have been playing on the same circuit for many years. But we do not get to see each other unless we do play on the same jobs - especially Merlefest, when we all come out of the winter and get to congregate again to play music.

CMT: Is your band on the road the same as the group who recorded Circles Around Me? 

SB: Yeah, all the same guys.

CMT: You just mentioned playing slide mandolin. I’m not too familiar with the history of the instrument, so I do not know how common that is….

SB: It is not very common. It is one of the reasons that Derek has gotta have me come out to Los Angeles. Usually what I play is an old 1937 Gibson F-5, a wooden mandolin. Well, the one I play the slide on, a National, it has a metal body and has a resonator, which you  are used to seeing with a dobro or a National slide guitar.

I started doing this in about 1971. I raised the action up on it and use only four strings instead of eight. So you raise the action really high and play it with a bottle neck or a slide around your finger. It is not really what I would call a bluegrass instrument. You ca not play fast notes or fiddle tunes. It is more blues influenced – I am influenced by slide players like Merle [Doc] Watson and Duane Allman.