Joel Mabus

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Joel Mabus locates his southern Illinois birthplace about 105 miles southeast of Mark Twain, 190 miles northwest of Bill Monroe, 110 miles southwest of Burl Ives and just over the river and up the hill from Scott Joplin. His great-grandfather was an Illinois farmhouse fiddler of the 19th century. When his mother and father came of age in the Great Depression, they took their old-time music on the road barnstorming the Midwest with road shows. Joel went off to college in Michigan, with extended night studies in the music profession, further absorbing styles of blues, Western swing and Irish tunes, as well as writing his own songs. As many people now know him as an astute songwriter as do those who know him as a master of the guitar, mandolin and banjo.