Arts & Entertainment

Vince Herman Brings Leftover Salmon to The Cap to Celebrate Jerry Garcia’s Music

Published 6 months ago6m ago • Bookmarks: 635

Leftover Salmon. Bottom left to right: Vince Herman, Drew Emmitt and Greg Garrison. Top row: Alwyn Robinson, Jay Starling and Andy Thorn. Photo credit: Tobin Vogesser

July 21, 2025

.By W.B. King —

Long before Vince Herman crisscrossed the nation showcasing Leftover Salmon’s unique brew of polyethnic Cajun, country, bluegrass-rock, he was captivated by a Tarrytown raised virtuoso. “David Bromberg was my man. A major hero for me,” Herman told The Hudson Independent. “My first week of the ninth grade, I went to see a Bromberg Big Band Show in Pittsburg, and it blew me away.”

Herman was inspired by Bromberg’s vast musical influences, his ability to sing and play multiple instruments as well as his work with countless 1960-era musical icons like Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jorma Kaukonen, and Richie Havens, among others. “I was kind of dipping my toes into bluegrass…I loved Irish music and blues, and he played them all that night with an amazing band,” he reflected. “It was so diverse. It really set the goal for me.”

Support our Sponsors

Cats Under the Stars

The youngest of seven children, Herman grew up in the Steel City listening to the sounds his siblings brought home—from Motown hitmakers to Stax Records artists like Booker T. & the M.G.’s and The Staple Singers to British invasion acts like The Beatles. Groups like The Doors and regional polka bands also made a lasting impact.

While attending a Smoky City Bluegrass Festival in Pittsburgh, some 10 years after the Bromberg show, Herman was firmly bitten by the bluegrass bug. “I saw a bunch of people pickin’ underneath this tree, just one big circle, and I realized that those people might not know each other; they just know this common repertoire,” the guitarist and singer reflected. “And it occurred to me that if I could learn that repertoire, I could travel around and go meet people, have friends and a good time.”

Soon after, he was listening to bluegrass and Cajun players like Mose Coffman, J.P. Fraley and Dewey Balfa, and began playing gigs of his own. While attending West Virginia University, he studied theatre, English and anthropology. While theatre wasn’t his bag, the combination of these pursuits better informed his understanding of how musical history, community and performance were intertwined.

“I went to school in Morgantown, West Virginia, and they had a pretty big archive of early field recordings from Appalachian musicians. I spent a lot of time just getting that stuff in my ears and got to play with guys like Melvin Wine and Woody Simmons, cats like that, you know, Smithsonian [archives] kind of people,” Herman said of the now long past heralded West Virginia fiddle players. “I got a real big appreciation of old-time music and bluegrass too, and ironically, Calypso music and ska, which was going on in Morgantown at the time.”

‘Strangers Stoppin’ Strangers, Just to Shake Their Hand’

Herman’s anthropological and musical interests also led him to investigating the Grateful Dead’s intriguing traveling subculture circus of sorts. Formerly Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions and then The Warlocks, the San Francisco Bay-based minstrels began cultivating their unique panache in 1965.

“I caught my first show in Pittsburgh in 1979 and saw them a bunch through the mid-1980s and then started playing [my own shows],” he shared. The Dead’s influences were varied and pulled largely from American roots music. It’s unassuming frontman, Jerry Garcia, was also a bluegrass devotee and had moonlighted with Old & In the Way, which featured Peter Rowan (guitar, vocals), Vassar Clements (fiddle), Garcia (banjo, vocals), David Grisman (mandolin, vocals), and John Kahn (string bass).

“I just loved what the Dead did, both as a rock and roll band and as people who promoted acoustic music and old stuff,” Herman noted. And like the friends he met under that tree during the Smoky City Bluegrass Festival, Herman found a new group of brothers and sisters who enjoyed celebrating the Dead’s vast songbook, including original tunes like “Scarlet Begonias,” “Dark Star,” “Touch of Grey,” “New Speedway Boogie,” and “Comes a Time.” “There are some great things that happened in the parking lots and parties I’d go to after the shows…in some interesting places,” he noted. “I was able to find that musical family through that, for sure.”

Pasta on the Mountain

By 1985, Herman moved west, landing in Boulder, Colorado where he quickly met like-minded bluegrass enthusiasts, including mandolinist and guitarist Drew Emmitt who was playing with the “new grass” inspired group, Left Hand String Band. Herman soon formed the Salmon Heads, a Cajun-jug band. Four years later, after a happenstance holiday gig, the musical compadres formed Leftover Salmon, which became a celebrated group in the jam band scene performing fan favorites like “Pasta on the Mountain,” “Highway Song,” and “Troubled Times.”

Over the years, Leftover Salmon has played with Lucinda Williams, Phil Lesh, Sam Bush, Billy Strings, Daniel Donato, Bill Payne, Taj Mahal, Bela Fleck, and Del McCoury, among many others. While the band has lost original members, welcomed new players and took some breaks, Emmitt and Herman, through thick and thin, have always carried the torch.

“We’re really lucky to have younger people come into the band and bring a lot of great new energy to it over the years and keeping new material coming in…it certainly helps Drew and I,” Herman said, noting the prowess of current band members Greg Garrison (bass), Andy Thorn (banjo), Alwyn Robinson (drums) and Jay Starling (guitar). “The fact we love hanging out with each other is certainly a big bonus, too. So, it’s a family kind of feeling with this crew.”

Herman, who also plays with other outfits like The High Hawks, released his first solo album in 2022, Enjoy the Ride—a “pile of songs” he recorded in Nashville with “A-list studio cats.” When on the road with Leftover Salmon, though, he keeps other original musical projects siloed from setlists. And after 30-plus years of touring and battling the rigors of the road, he looks forward to one day “slowing down and smelling the roses,” but not before completing a rigorous gigging schedule that runs through, at least, mid-December 2025. “We keep doing it because it’s the only trick we know. It’s probably too late to start my real estate career,” he said with a laugh. “It’s just what we love.”

Let the Good Times Roll

For the second year in a row, Leftover Salmon will grace the stage at The Capitol Theatre celebrating the music of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. The performance on August 2 takes place during the “days between,” known fondly by Dead heads as the period from Garcia’s birthday on August 1 and his passing on the ninth (at age 53 in 1995). This year also marks the 60^th anniversary of the band’s inception, which is being celebrated the same weekend in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with three shows by surviving members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart who front Dead & Company.

“It’s great to see cats who’ve been doing it for so long, doing so well and keeping it together and bringing fresh new things into it. Definitely role models,” Herman said, adding that he can’t wait to return to The Cap. The Dead played the venue numerous times in the early 1970s, and all surviving members have played there since it reopened in 2012 under the tutelage of owner Peter Shapiro.

“You can definitely feel the history of the place. It’s kind of like the Fillmore or like Gruene Hall in Texas,” Herman told The Hudson Independent. “The Capitol is up there with those iconic venues, for sure…you better be bringing your best game just to play in that context.”

Fans can expect a healthy dose of Dead songs and a few surprises, including an opening set from seasoned jam band scene troubadour Keller Williams and his Grateful Grass. “Keller will, and we will, be playing lots of Dead, maybe some other stuff…maybe some Jerry [Garcia] Band; we might lean that way,” Herman said. “It’ll be a good night of tunes for Dead heads, that’s for sure.”

Read or leave a comment on this story...

Support our Sponsors