Greg Schochet

Short Professional Bio

Greg Schochet is a full-time performer, teacher and producer in Boulder, Colorado. Equally adept on guitar and mandolin, he is fluent in all manner of acoustic and electric styles, specializing in bluegrass, swing and country. He was the lead guitarist for Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams for 16 years, Colorado’s beloved and venerable honky-tonk and western swing band. He now fronts Greg Schochet & Little America, a 5-piece western swing band. Greg is an integral part of Colorado’s thriving roots music scene, and is a sought after instructor, session player, producer and collaborator.

He has performed at such wonderful venues as Prairie Home Companion, Red Rocks, Strawberry Music Festival, Sisters Folk Festival, Rockygrass, New Orleans Jazz Fest, as well as countless performing arts centers, clubs, bars, rodeos and flatbed trucks.

Greg is winner of the 2021 Rockygrass Flatpick guitar contest.

A veteran of many teaching camps, Greg has also been guitar and mandolin teacher at Woodsongs Music, Colorado’s premier acoustic music store, for some 20 years. His teaching practice centers around preparing students to thrive in ensemble settings, whether it be a campground jam or a working band.

He has taught at some of some of the premier camps in the west: Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Targhee Music Camp, Walker Creek Music Camp, California Coast Music Camp, Montana Fiddle Camp and Colorado Roots Music Camp.

Long Personal Bio

My name is Greg Schochet, and I have lived in and around Boulder, Colorado for 34 years now. Before that, I was born and raised in New York, on Long Island. Though I came to Boulder to study English at CU,  my time here since has revolved around music. I have made my living as a player and teacher of guitar and mandolin for close to 20 years, as well as with production and session work. Below you will find something of a musical life story. For a more "professional" bio, see here. 

My musical path has been circuitous yet always connected. I grew up  in a house and station wagons that always had music playing. This was my father's music: Bob Dylan and the Band, The Beatles and Stones, Elton John, James Taylor and of course, Cat Stevens. My own tastes during high school added AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and of course, the Grateful Dead. It was during this time that I first picked up a guitar, and haven't stopped playing since. 

The Dead led me, like so many of my generation, to bluegrass, and the mandolin. I fell hard and fast for this music and its participatory culture, and in Boulder, then as now, there was an enthusiastic and welcoming community of pickers, public radio shows and cutting-edge bands. 

My first serious band experience grew out of this wild bluegrass west: Runaway Truck Ramp. Named for a tune of mine that was named for a highway feature I am still fascinated by, RTR got me on the stage, on the road and in the recording studio. We made two records and toured the country in an R.V. playing our very Bouldery jamgrass, where fiddle and mandolin met electric guitar and drums in a dark Bill Monroe song. This late '90s period was an exciting one in the greater Boulder/Nederland metropolitan area, and RTR was smack in the middle of establishing the nascent "Colorado sound' that included future and current superstars like Leftover Salmon, the String Cheese Incident and Yonder Mountain String Band.  

From the depths of my bluegrass tunnel vision, I began to connect the dots to other pillars of American music: early country and honky-tonk, like Hank Williams and George Jones, Bob Wills' Western Swing, which scared the hell out of me, and some of the unclassifiable greats, like Norman Blake, John Hartford and Ry Cooder, as well as more contemporary Americana such as Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen and Lucinda Williams. 

This musical shift got me back on electric guitar and into my first country band: The All Night Honky-Tonk All-Stars. The brainchild of myself, Danny Shafer and Rebecca Frazier, the All-Stars found Boulder to be a surprisingly fertile home for the twang. While I immersed myself in the catalogues of Loretta Lynn and Buck Owens in a 400 square foot cabin in Boulder Canyon, perhaps more importantly, I acquired my first snap-button shirt and Fender amp. 

You can imagine my excitement to learn of a thriving retro-country-rockabilly-honky-tonk scene in Denver, largely centered around the world-famous Skylark Lounge. It was at the Skylark, back when I still thought Lone Star was a beer worth drinking, where I first got an earful of bona fide country guitar and steel players and singers, and met my future band mates from the Hi-Beams. Before I knew it, my mandolin case was dusty, and I was carting a Telecaster and a Deluxe Reverb to gigs. 

When the Hi*Beams called to see if I was interested in replacing their guitar player, I felt I had won the honky-tonk lottery. With a full schedule of gigs, a frontman from Texas and Colorado's legendary man of steel, Bret Billings, on the electric table, I knew I had to put my Tele where my mouth was. 16 years later, I think I passed the audition. 

Which kind of brings us up to my musical adulthood, if you will. The Hi*Beams years have been incredibly rewarding musically, professionally, and in all other ways that there are. I feel that my musical voice has coalesced into something singular from the many influences I’ve chased. I’ve accepted that I’ve got something to offer the world as a performer and teacher, and that there is no plan B for a career.

With the Hi*Beams currently on hiatus, I’ve leaned hard into my versions of swing, country and bluegrass guitar (and mandolin), as well as my teaching practice, with camps and students far and wide.

Thanks for reading this far, if you have! I'm so lucky to live the rich musical life that I do, full of inspiring collaborators, rewarding students, fearless dancers, hoppy beers and tube amps. Hope to see you out there.