About Rick Shubb
At age fourteen I took up the guitar, inspired by the playing of Merle Travis. At fifteen, a recording of Earl Scruggs hit me like a thunderbolt, and I switched to banjo. During my 20s and 30s I was among only a handful of stalwarts scratching out a living playing bluegrass on the West Coast.
Our History
The Shubb Capo company began in California in 1974, when Dave Coontz and I collaborated to design and produce a new fifth string capo for banjo. Before that, I worked as a professional 5-string banjo player and teacher, and Dave was an auto mechanic and a banjo student of mine. One night at his lesson, I was talking about my dissatisfaction with existing methods of capoing the fifth string.
Rick Shubb, Musician
Someone once commented to Doc Watson about his Shubb Capo. Doc replied, “Son, I knowed Rick Shubb before there was a Shubb Capo.”
He was right. If you know my name, it is probably because of my capo. But before that I made my living as a 5-string banjo player and teacher, and occasionally as a freelance graphic artist. This page is for those of you who may be curious about my career as a performing and recording musician.
Rick Shubb, Graphic Artist
I’ve always had a knack for drawing, and drew a lot when I was a kid. I attended California College of Arts and Crafts, but didn’t learn much there. I was more interested in playing music, and only lasted for three semesters at college.
In my late teens and early twenties I carried a sketchbook, in which I doodled with either pencil or pen (a #000 Rapidograph). I still have some of the pages from this sketchbook, which capture the mood of those late night, cannabis-enhanced sessions in Palo Alto.
