Bio
Mission Blue delivers straight-ahead bluegrass featuring our special brand of family harmony singing. A collaboration of Dana and Avram Frankel, Mission Blue has been performing since 2017. A deep well of traditional bluegrass to informs Mission Blue’s sets – one can expect songs from the The Stanley Brothers, Larry Sparks, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Mac Martin and Red Allen, as well as bluegrass innovators such as J.D. Crowe and The New South, Hot Rize, Southern Blend and The Johnson Mountain Boys. In addition, Mission Blue salts each set with reinterpretations of older folk tunes and ballads - and original material.
For each show Avram and Dana wrangle top California bluegrass talent into a traditional five-piece band. Sonoma County native David Thiessen joins us for most shows. A well-recognized Northern CA mandolin and harmony singing talent, who has performed all over the Western US and Europe, we are lucky to have him. We are often joined on banjo by Sam Reed, another Sonoma County native, or Jesse Personeni from Amador County - both are rising CA bluegrass talents and crowd favorites. We draw from a range of top CA bass fiddle players for each show.
Dana and Avram are long-time veterans of the Bay Area bluegrass scene. Dana has grown up in the Northern California bluegrass community and is recognized as one of the most promising young up and coming California bluegrass fiddlers. Avram is a veteran of a number of California bands performing on guitar and dobro.
We perform at family friendly venues all over Northern CA and have appeared at the Parkfield Bluegrass Festival in Parkfield, CA, The Back Room in Berkeley, CA, The CBA Father’s Day Festival Vern’s Stage in Grass Valley, the McLoud Mountain Bluegrass Festival, McLoud, CA, and were booked for a number of upcoming 2020 festivals including the Berkeley Bluegrass, Lost River in Merrill, OR, and Good Ole Fashioned in Hollister, CA. We’d love to see you at our next performance or enhance the lineup of your next festival. Please check out our performance videos and demo tracks under the Band Profile tab.
