Mike Bub: Stitching It Together

Touring and session bass player Mike Bub has done a lot over his decades in the business. From playing on Molly Tuttle’s first Grammy-winning album – to spending 13 years touring with Del McCoury – to even performing with classics of the past, such as Bill Monroe – Bub has had a full and impactful career in bluegrass.

“As a bass player, people are drawn to it like a moth to a flame,” he said, recognizing the unique role the upright bass plays visually and sonically onstage.

“It sort of stitches everything together,” he said, of the way the deep undercurrent of his instrument unites the whole composition and, in a way, guides it.

“You can kind of change the feel of a song by playing long notes or short notes,” he said. “You have to be intuitive.”

When Bub first hit the stages in Nashville, he played bass, but it wasn’t his main instrument at the time. 

“I started out as a banjo player, which was my primary direction,” he explained. “I really arrived in Nashville as a banjo player. I ended up getting more work playing the bass; I don’t really know why.”

He’d eventually become bass player for Del McCoury, where he remained for 13 years. From then on, it was bass all the way. He said his fingers are so accustomed to bass today that they don’t want to acquiesce when he picks up the banjo.

When he made the transition, Bub said he “knew the repertoire already from playing banjo,” which gave him an edge in mastering his new role. “It just gives you an awareness from the other perspectives.”

Although he also plays electric, Bub said upright bass is where it’s at.

“I have two primary instruments that I play. I have a ‘50s S-model Kay bass and a late 1930s American Standard. I go back and forth between the two, depending on what the music is. I just like playing solid, country, bluegrass bass.”

In addition to Tuttle’s notable album, Bub has been an in-demand studio musician, and his work can be heard on the first record of Wyatt Ellis, “Purgatory” by Tyler Childers, and the Sturgill Simpson bluegrass albums. He’s been featured on “four or five” Tim O’Brien records and has done studio work for Marty Falle, Daniel Crabtree and Donna Ulisse. The names are many, and making records fills the time when he’s not performing locally or touring on the road. In addition to his lengthy stint with Del McCoury, he’s done some touring with Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley and has “played on all of their albums.” This year, he’ll be touring with Peter Rowan and Tim O’Brien.

“I play every Monday night at the Station Inn with a band called New Monday,” he said of one of the most prominent live music spots in Nashville. New Monday joins Val Storey, Carl Jackson, and Larry Cordle for some “country, bluegrass and swing instrumentals.”

“This is what I’ve wanted to do my entire life since the time I was 15 at my first bluegrass festival,” Bub said.

He considers himself fortunate that he arrived on the scene when the pioneers of the bluegrass genre were still around. It was near the end of their performing days, but Bub got to the scene at just the perfect moment.

“It was a time when all the first-generation bluegrass musicians were still alive and kicking,” he said. Bill Monroe. The Osborne Brothers. Jim & Jesse. 

“I was really here at a prime time to get to see – and play with – some of these guys,” Bub said.

At this point, decades in, the musician looks back at a fulfilling life in the business. He said he’s gotten to a pretty good place.

“It takes that long to elevate yourself where you can make a pretty good living,” he said, of the years he’s spent on the road and in the studio. However, is there anything else he’d like to do? Any stages he’d like to appear on that he’s not tackled thus far?

“The summer I left Del [McCoury], they were booked at Carnegie Hall and Newport Folk Festival,” he said. Bub just missed being onstage at those coveted venues. “But I have this saying…if you stay in the business long enough, you’ll play them all.”

Sounds as if he plans to “keep on keeping on” with his plucking and strumming, so there’s no doubt he’ll eventually “play them all.”