Josh Swift is a Dobro player from Sparta, Tennessee. He joined Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver in 2007 at age 21 and stayed for about 12 years. He won the IBMA’s Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year award in 2017. He also runs a recording studio in his hometown.
Why Swift matters
Before 2017 only three people had won the IBMA Dobro award, and Swift became the fourth. He was more than the Dobro player in Quicksilver. He led the band on the road and engineered many of its records.
Life and career
Swift comes from Sparta, a town Lester Flatt also called home. He grew up singing gospel music with his parents. His first bluegrass jobs were with Set Apart and then Carrie Hassler and Hard Rain.
In October 2007 Doyle Lawson hired him for Quicksilver. Swift became the band’s road leader and its main audio engineer. He records at Cowbell Fever, his studio in Sparta. Beard Guitars makes a Josh Swift signature resonator guitar.
He won the IBMA Dobro award in 2017. In 2018 Sparta added him to its Bluegrass Hall of Fame, beside Lester Flatt and fiddler Benny Martin. He left Quicksilver in January 2020 after just over 12 years.
Playing style
Swift played Dobro in a band that recorded both bluegrass and gospel music. Lawson said he first heard Swift at Dollywood, and that his Dobro playing “blew my socks off.”
Influences and legacy
Swift grew up in the same town as Lester Flatt and Benny Martin, and now shares Sparta’s Hall of Fame with them. In Quicksilver he played under Doyle Lawson, a mandolin player who founded the band in 1979.
Awards and honors
IBMA Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year (2017) Sparta, Tennessee, Bluegrass Hall of Fame (2018)
Watch and listen
Swift plays a Beard Dobro.
What to learn from Swift
Swift spent 12 years backing a vocal band. Learn to play behind singers. Take a gospel song such as I’ll Fly Away and play short fills only in the gaps between lines. Keep the Dobro quiet while the voices sing.
Sources
Sliding along with Doyle, Bluegrass Today Josh Swift inducted into Sparta, TN Bluegrass Hall of Fame, Bluegrass Today Josh Swift, City of Sparta Bluegrass Today report on Josh Swift leaving Quicksilver List of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver band members, Wikipedia Awards by Category, IBMA Doyle Lawson, Wikipedia
Related players
See the Dobro players hub and the Dobro guide. Phil Leadbetter won the IBMA award just before and just after Swift. Justin Moses won it the next year.