Joe Zauner

Joe Zauner

Joe Zauner has been playing bluegrass banjo and guitar since 1973. He played in local DC area bands during college and law school, including the very popular “Stars & Bars” band which featured now 8-time IBMA Bass Player of the Year Missy Raines among its regular members. Stars & Bars performed at all the major bluegrass music venues in and near Washington, DC and at bluegrass festivals in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Joe currently works with Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike, was a member of the Patent Pending bluegrass band from 2014 to 2019, and did a two-year stint with the Jeanette and Johnny Williams Band. He has also performed in various musical configurations alongside four-time Grammy-winning composer Louisa Branscomb. Joe was selected to appear on the “Patuxent Banjo Project”, a two-volume recording of tunes by well-known banjo players in the Washington, DC area. His cut “Angelina Baker” has received airplay on a number of bluegrass radio shows around the country.

While a full-time trial attorney, Joe has had the opportunity to appear on stage with many well-known bluegrass music performers including Jerry Douglas, Buck, Sharon, and Cheryl White, Eddie & Martha Adcock, Roland White, Larry Stephenson, Pam Gadd, Randy Waller, Gene Johnson, Dudley Connell, Phil Rosenthal and the Dixie Beeliners. From 2005 to 2012 Joe worked as stage manager for the IBMA World of Bluegrass Fanfest main stage in Nashville. He is graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Maryland School of Law.