Bing Futch (b. Hollywood, California, December 16, 1966) is a musician whose primary instrument is the mountain dulcimer. In 1986 he co-founded Christian techno-punk trio Crazed Bunnyz along with Marc "Gadget" Plainguet and Sean "Shaka" Harrison. He relocated to

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures r ...

in 1993 and also plays the

Native American flute The Native American flute is a flute that is held in front of the player, has open finger holes, and has two chambers: one for collecting the breath of the player and a second chamber which creates sound. The player breathes into one end of the ...

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

, and drums. Futch has composed and produced soundtracks for film, theater, television and themed attractions. In 1994, he wrote and recorded music for The Castle of Miracles at Give Kids The World Village in

Kissimmee, Florida Kissimmee ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Osceola County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 79,226. It is a Principal City of the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area, wh ...

. In 1999, Futch formed Americana band Mohave, featuring the mountain dulcimer as the main instrument. The group has performed at the

House of Blues House of Blues is an American chain of live music concert halls and restaurants. It was founded by Isaac Tigrett, the co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and Dan Aykroyd, co-star of the 1980 film ''The Blues Brothers''. The first location opened at H ...

Walt Disney World The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake, Florida, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando ...

, Hard Rock Live at

Universal Studios Florida Universal Studios Florida (also known as Universal Studios or USF) is a theme park located in Orlando, Florida. Primarily themed to movies, television and other aspects of the entertainment industry, the park opened to the public on June 7, 199 ...

and has opened for

Molly Hatchet Molly Hatchet is an American rock band formed in 1971 by guitarist Dave Hlubek in Jacksonville, Florida. They were a popular band during the late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s among the southern rock and hard rock communities. The band released ...

, among other acts. Futch performs using regular and baritone mountain dulcimers as well as custom-made dual-fretboard and resonator instruments, and is one of only two mountain dulcimer players to compete in the history of the

International Blues Challenge The International Blues Challenge (IBC) is a music competition run by the Blues Foundation. Notable blues artists that have competed in the IBC over the years also includes Fiona Boyes, Eden Brent, Michael Burks, Tommy Castro, Sean Costello, Alber ...

, advancing to the semi-finals in the 2015 edition of the competition. During the 2016 edition of the

, Futch made it to the finals and was awarded "Best Guitarist" in the solo-duo category, despite performing solely on the Appalachian mountain dulcimer. He is the grandson of the late

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

hall-of-famer

Eddie Futch Eddie Futch (August 9, 1911 – October 10, 2001) was an American boxing trainer. Among the fighters he trained are Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, and Trevor Berbick, four of the five men to defeat Muhammad Ali. Futch also trained Ridd ...

Northwest Airlines incident

On June 14, 2009, Futch was en route to a show in Ft. Wayne, Indiana on

Northwest Airlines Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...

flight 2363 from Detroit, Michigan. During that time,

baggage handler In the airline industry, a baggage handler is a person who loads and unloads baggage (suitcases or luggage), and other cargo (airfreight, mail, counter-to-counter packages) for transport via aircraft. With most airlines, the formal job title is ...

s damaged his double-necked mountain dulcimer.A Musician's Nightmare
– ''Nowhere Blog'', June 15, 2009. Accessed July 14, 2009. Encouraged by fans to write a song about the incident, and after seeing Dave Carroll's "

United Breaks Guitars "United Breaks Guitars" is a trio of protest songs by Canadian musician Dave Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell. It chronicles a real-life experience of how his guitar was broken during a trip on United Airlines in 2008, and the reaction from ...

" on YouTube, Futch penned "Only a Northwest Song""Only a Northwest Song" video
– YouTube on July 10, 2009, and posted it to the service, hoping it would help to avoid a "lengthy reimbursement battle."United guitar video shows online gripes can get results
– ''Chicago Tribune'', July 14, 2009. Accessed July 14, 2009. Within a day of the video's posting,

contacted Futch to offer their apologies along with compensation.YouTube heroes Dave Carroll and Bing Futch win airline compensation
– ''Times Online'', July 14, 2009. Accessed July 14, 2009.

Question on Jeopardy!

On February 16, 2011, during the finale of a three-day ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'' pitting returning champs

Ken Jennings Kenneth Wayne Jennings III (born May 23, 1974) is an American game show host, author, and former game show contestant. He is the highest-earning American game show contestant, having won money on five different game shows, including $4,522,70 ...

and

Brad Rutter Bradford Gates Rutter (born January 31, 1978) is an American game show contestant, TV host, producer, and actor. With over $5.1 million in winnings, he is currently the 2nd highest-earning American game show contestant of all time, behind Ken Je ...

against IBM's Supercomputer Watson, Futch's name appeared as one of three possible questions for the answer "Nearly 10 million YouTubers saw Dave Carroll's clip called 'this friendly skies' airline 'breaks guitars.'" Watson offered up "United Airlines" with an 81% probability of being correct, "

" was the second choice with a probability of 13% and "Futch" was the third choice with a probability of 7%.Does Watson Think a Poor Workman Blames Yogi Berra
– ''HyperVocal'', February 17, 2010. Accessed February 18, 2010.

Discography

*''Castaway: Original Soundtrack'', 1986 *''Kansas'', 1987 *''Buy Dis Album Ore God Will Disconnect My Fone'', 1987 *''The Girl and the Book'', 1987 *''21'', 1987 *''Fantasy Amidst The Storm'', 1989 *''70 mm'', 1994 *''Dulcimerica: Volume 1'', 2006 *''Dulcimer Rock'', 2007 *''Kokopelli Rising'', 2008 *''Christmas Each Day'', 2008 *''Dulcimerica: Volume 2'', 2010 *''Storm's Sigh'', 2011 *''Live At Old Songs!'', 2012 *''Dive!'', 2013 *''All Songs Lead To The Gift Shop'', 2014 *''Unresolved Blues'', 2015 *''Dulcimerica: Volume 3'', 2015 *''Sweet River'', 2015 *''Return Of Live At Old Songs'', 2016 *''Live From Ditty TV'', 2016 *''Synth For A Season'', 2016 *''What's Old Becomes New Again'', 2017 *''The Improv Files: Year One'', 2018 *''The Beauty and the Terror'', 2021 With Nutty Faith: *''It's Our Job'', 1985 With Crazed Bunnyz: *''Achtung: Musik Klirrfaktor'', 1986 *''Live!'', 1987 *''Transition'', 1987 *''Blutgasse'', 1988 With Mohave: *''Homegrown'', 1999 *''Spider Rock'', 2000 *''Live At Leu Gardens'', 2003 *''Clear Blue Trickling'', 2005 With Naked Head: *''Beautiful Disruption'', 2002 With Manitou: *''In The Garden Of The Gods'', 2009 As Producer: * Wendy Songe ''Test Drive'', 2015 * Wendy Songe ''Driven, 2016

References

External links

*
Reverbnation PageBing Futch: Listen Again – AXS
* ttp://dulcimuse.com/podcast/resource/009.html Hearts of the Dulcimer-PodcastEpisode 009: Bing Futch: Dulcimer Road Warrior
Hearts of the Dulcimer-Podcast
Episode 016: Blues On Dulcimer {{DEFAULTSORT:Futch, Bing Appalachian dulcimer players People from Hollywood, Los Angeles 1966 births Living people People from Orlando, Florida