Randy Grigg, who formed the Flatland Bluegrass Band in 2001, is originally from Emporia, Virginia. He plays guitar and sings lead vocals and harmony. Randy started studying music when he was nine years old, playing trumpet in the school band for nine years. Music has always been a part of his life. (His mother still plays piano and organ in his home church and both of his grandmothers played piano.) His earliest remembrances were of his family gathering around his grandmother's piano down on his grandparent's farm on a Sunday afternoon and singing the old gospel songs. His love of vocal harmony came from singing in the church choir during his teen years and hearing old gospel and country group's recordings. When he was about fifteen, a fellow high school band member showed him a few chords on an old Gibson and he knew he had to learn to play the guitar. His father bought him a new guitar out of the Sears catalog for about $35. This led him to form a rock and roll band, called The Electras, back in the '60's. He played with them during his high school and college years until he went in the Air Force in 1968. During a tour of duty in New Mexico, he bought an old flattop guitar at a pawnshop and started pickin' with some fellow Airmen. It wasn't long before he was playing in a country band that performed in the Eastern New Mexico and West Texas area, (even performing behind chicken wire in a local "honky-tonk" a few times!). About six months later, he got an assignment overseas and left his guitar back home in Virginia. It wasn't until 1985 that he bought a new electric guitar and amplifier, leaving the flattop in the closet. Not caring much for the modern day, '80's rock music, he tried for a while to form a band with musicians who played the old '60's Rock and Roll and Southern Beach Music and some of the new country music. But finding the right combination of musicians was hard and it never worked out. About 1990, he got the old flattop out and "sat-in" with Ronnie Welch and a couple of the guys from Evergreen during a gospel-sing at the church he attended. Also about this time he had gone to see Bill Monroe at a local Bluegrass festival and thought that there was something very familiar about the sound of the music he was hearing. The music he heard on the radio while spending summers down on his grandparent's farm in the late '50's had "come to the surface" and he found he really understood and identified with it. In 1991, Bill(Doc)Russell, who originally formed the Blades of Grass Band, needed a guitar player and was asked to come by for an audition. He accepted the invitation and played with The Blades of Grass Band until 2000. He then started the Hometown Bluegrass Band, (that eventually became the Flatland Bluegrass Band), which played on a local monthly stage show with many nationally known country and Bluegrass acts. He and his wife, Karen, make there home in Carrollton, VA. His memberships include the International Bluegrass Music Association, (IBMA) , the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America, (SPGMA), the Tidewater Bluegrass Music Association, (TBMA), the Virginia Bluegrass Family, and the Virginia Folk Music Association, (VFMA).