Adam Schlenker
Adam Schlenker always has the big picture of American roots music on his mind.
Where others might see Bela Fleck, Jimmie Rodgers, and Mississippi John Hurt in different
leagues, he sees the fretboard of a guitar. Visualizing the similarities between their
approaches has allowed musician, educator, composer, and arranger Adam Schlenker to
step back and see how it all fits together.
As a thoughtful force in American roots music, Adam understands his embeddedness in
this interwoven fabric. So, the dual aims of creating something new and honoring what’s
come before suffuses all of Adam’s diverse projects as a musician and educator.
As a musician, Adam has never devoted all his time to any one genre. Growing up in
Beckley, West Virginia, what began as an impulse to start guitar lessons after seeing a
roadside advertisement soon became an integral part of his identity. Bluegrass, blues,
country, rock, and progressive American roots sounds all contributed to his musical
development.
Equally at home with a telecaster or a dreadnought in his hands, Adam found a thriving
music scene when he moved to Columbus, Ohio in 1998. There, he continued to speak in
the languages of many genres as a session musician, engineer, and band member. Over the
next two decades he played in bands as wide ranging as electric jam band The Bootlegger’s
Union, progressive acoustic and bluegrass unit Fox N Hounds, and regional country-rock
supergroup The Spikedrivers.
Adam’s solo projects, meanwhile, showcased the balanced dualism between tradition and
personal expression that have come to define his career. Half the space on the track lists of
albums like Family Tree (2012), A Matter of Time (2017), and The Ghosts of Pain Creek
(2020) was for his original compositions; the other half for what inspired him. Adam brings
a version of this approach to his latest band Appalachian Swing, which plays the repertoire
of the Kentucky Colonels—he adeptly tackles the challenge of blending the spirit of
Clarence White’s flatpicking with his own musical voice.
Adam’s work as an educator is motivated by the same goal: to help his students develop
personal style within the vernacular of American roots music. In 2009, he founded 5th Fret
Productions, a thriving teaching studio that offers video lessons, written teaching materials
that introduce students to Adam’s fretboard visualizations, and lessons through video
conferencing platforms that reach students across the globe. Adam’s recorded teaching
also boasts an impressive YouTube reach with over 1.5 million views over 7,000 followers.
Adam regularly brings his instruction style to in-person camps in the US and abroad, such
as The Nashville Flatpick Camps and The Perry Stenback International Guitar Camp at
Engelsholm Castle in Denmark.
After developing his individual and ensemble-based teaching through 5th Fret Production
and founding The Acoustic Roots Music Ensemble Series in 2014, Adam became
Coordinator of American Roots Music Studies at Denison University in 2018. Under Adam’s
leadership, the program expanded its scope from a single genre focus to covering the big
picture of American roots music. This allows Adam to expose students to a wide variety of
sounds and approaches, showing them the connections he sees along the way.
At Denison, Adam teaches a History of Bluegrass and American Roots class and leads the
American Roots Ensemble class, where students explore a new artist or theme each
semester like the Stanley Brothers, Hank Williams, or Sam Bush. In his signature American
Roots Seminar course, Adam reproduces the process of his solo albums on a miniature
scale: students study the inner workings of a song like “Gentle On My Mind,” write their own
compositions inspired by these models, and record them in studio. Adam expands
students’ musical perspectives by connecting them with off-campus music communities,
whether that be taking students to IBMA’s World of Bluegrass showcase, or hosting
workshops with visiting artists and local musicians as part of Denison’s yearly American
Roots Music Festival.
As Adam enters his fortieth year with a guitar in his hands, he sees no sign of slowing down.
Adam is always looking ahead to the next project, the next way to shepherd students
through their next musical breakthrough, or the next way to explore the connections
between his musical roots.