Mark Cosgrove is a flatpicking guitarist and mandolin player from the Philadelphia area. He won the MerleFest Doc Watson Guitar Championship in 1994 and the National Flatpicking Championship at Winfield, Kansas, in 1995. From 2013 to 2020 he played guitar and mandolin in David Bromberg’s band. He has taught at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp since the late 1990s.
Why Cosgrove matters
Cosgrove is a contest champion who spent most of his career as a working band guitarist. He plays bluegrass, swing, country, and blues with the same clean flatpick attack. His Winfield win in 1995 came eight years after he first entered and failed to advance. That story matters to any picker who has lost a contest and wants to try again.
Life and career
Cosgrove grew up in a Manhattan apartment full of classical music. His mother, Mary Percy Schenck, won a Tony Award as a Broadway costume designer. Guitar was his first instrument, but he switched to drums at age ten and wanted to be a drummer. Around age fifteen he met classmates who liked bluegrass and went back to the guitar. Clarence White’s flatpicking on the Byrds album Untitled and Doc Watson’s playing on Will the Circle Be Unbroken pulled him in.
At eighteen he played in Cross Country, a swing country band in the Philadelphia area. He then joined the Lewis Brothers, a Philadelphia bluegrass band that made two albums and toured Europe. He first entered the Winfield contest in 1987 and did not advance. He won the Doc Watson Guitar Championship at MerleFest in 1994, placed second at Winfield that fall, and won Winfield in 1995. He played both contests on a Brazilian rosewood dreadnought he bought for one hundred dollars.
He released Good Medicine in 1994, then Sweet Reason in 2005 and Take Yer Medicine in 2007. In 1999 he recorded Flat Picking Champions: Live from Winfield with fellow champions Allen Shadd and Cody Kilby. From 2013 to 2020 he played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and mandolin and sang harmony in the David Bromberg Quintet and Big Band. He appears on Bromberg’s Big Road, which reached number one on the Billboard blues chart, and on The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing But the Blues.
Playing style
Cosgrove’s flatpicking has a clean attack and a swing feel. He mixes bluegrass runs with ideas from electric country players. He names Ray Flacke, Albert Lee, and James Burton as influences beside the acoustic players. On Sweet Reason he plays fiddle tunes like The Snowflake Reel and The New Camptown Races next to his own pieces such as Good Morning Isaac and Paint the Town Beige.
He also plays mandolin, electric guitar, and sings harmony, and he moved between all three in the Bromberg band. That range is part of his sound. He plays a bluegrass tune, a swing number, and a blues with the same pick hand.
Influences and legacy
Clarence White and Doc Watson started him. Lowell George of Little Feat, Commander Cody, and Asleep at the Wheel gave him a taste for swing and blues. David Bromberg was a hero before he was a bandleader, and Cosgrove has said that joining the band closed a circle in his working life. He has done session work with Jerry Douglas. He teaches guitar and mandolin at camps across the country and has been on staff at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp since the late 1990s.
Signature tunes and songs
Good Medicine Good Morning Isaac The Snowflake Reel Paint the Town Beige.
Essential recordings
Good Medicine (1994) Flat Picking Champions: Live from Winfield, with Allen Shadd and Cody Kilby (1999) Sweet Reason (2005) Take Yer Medicine (2007)
Awards and honors
MerleFest Doc Watson Guitar Championship, first place (1994) National Flatpicking Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, second place (1994) National Flatpicking Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, first place (1995)
Watch and listen
Cosgrove plays a solo spot at David Bromberg’s retirement concert in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 2023. Listen for the swing feel in his right hand.
What to learn from Cosgrove
Learn The Snowflake Reel from Sweet Reason. It is a fiddle tune with a strong melody, and his version shows how to add swing without losing the tune. The technique to steal is his swing feel. Play a bluegrass fiddle tune with the eighth notes swung, then play it straight, and listen to the difference. Cosgrove moves between those two feels in the same set, and a jam player who can do that fits in more rooms.
Sources
Winners archive, alphabetical, Walnut Valley Festival Bio, Mark Cosgrove Mark Cosgrove, Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals, The Official David Bromberg Website Mark Cosgrove, Flatpik.com instructors Mark Cosgrove, AllMusic biography Sweet Reason, Mark Cosgrove, Bandcamp Flat Picking Champions, Live from Winfield, Bandcamp
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Cosgrove recorded with fellow Winfield champions Allen Shadd and Cody Kilby. Tyler Grant is another Winfield winner who teaches at Steve Kaufman’s camp.