I grew up with bluegrass. I had no choice, I grew up being "with the band." Family of musicians. Back then though, I didn't like it much. Of course, true to form for the uninformed, I loved "Fox on the Run" (and still do) and, just to make me feel better about it I'll add that I also loved "The Cuckoo." And I still do.
But other than that, it was just background music, something that my parent's friends were into. I didnt' mind it, but I didn't go out of my way to listen to it. I was an Aerosmith fan. (And I still am.)
Finally though, when I was 22, I went to a bluegrass festival.
I hadn't been to one before that, first because I think my mom didn't really want to have to worry about where I was and what I was doing while she was having a blast (hehe) and later, when I was older, I just didn't want to go. Probably because my mom told me how much fun it would be, I probably figured it had to be lame.
Then I went to a festival; Camp Springs, here in North Carolina (and the bluegrass historians out there will be familiar with that name.) And, I was hooked.
Why had no one ever told me that a bluegrass festival is really a three day long party? Geez... There were stage shows from noon to midnight, but also, 24 hours a day, there were jam sessions. All over the place. Some very serious, sober ones, with redhot music and very little kidding around. Some with obviously beginning musicians, with not much in the way of technical ability but infused with fun (and alcohol, in a lot of cases.) And everything in between...
There were people of all ages... getting along with one another. Leather and chain wearing Harley riders talking to grandfathers about the relative merits of different brands of guitar strings. Neither would care that the other looked different; generations meant very little; everyone was family here. I thought that in itself was pretty cool.
Also, this was right around the same time that Hot Rize's "Traditional Ties" was popular... someone played it very early on Saturday morning, and it rang out LOUD on the hillside and woke me up. What I woke up to was a song called "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning" and it blew me away. (That guitar break is still one of the greatest I've ever heard, just for the simple perfection of it. Probably not one of the most difficult ever done, but one of the best sounding.)
So in the same weekend I was hooked on the attitude and the music.
Not long after that (and here's where the purists will have a cow) I discovered Newgrass Revival; quite simply the greatest band that's ever existed, so far as I'm concerned. (It's important to notice I said best band, not best bluegrass band. Best of all genres, is what I mean, cuz they darn near covered every genre, or at least cuddled up to it. As for who I think is or was the best bluegrass band ever, that'll just be my secret for now.)
I think maybe that explains a lot of it, for me. I'd grown up hearing bluegrass, but listening to rock. My family were into Bill Monroe, Jim and Jesse, Flatt and Scruggs, etc. I'd never been exposed to the progressive side of the music (well, except for the Country Gentlemen, and I did like them quite a bit, even before that Camp Springs weekend.)
But my discoveries of Hot Rize, Newgrass Revival, Seldom Scene, and then The Virginia Squires, and Lonesome River Band (hey, I loved 'em even before they had Ronnie Bowman, way back in the days of songs like "Close the Door Lightly") and bands like that... They were closer to my own age in a lot of cases; and, though I don't know it to be fact, I imagine that they were exposed to a lot of the same influences from popular, commercial, music that I was, and that I related to them more because of it.
No, this doesn't mean I think they, and the newer stuff, were better but they were more understandable to me, by virtue of common ground.
Later I went back and listened to all the older stuff I'd only heard before; the Bill Monroe, the Flatt and Scruggs, etc. I found out that I really love old Reno and Smiley music, the Kentucky Colonels, (amazing how many big Tony Rice fans have no idea who Clarence White was,) even The Blue Sky Boys.
When I get into something, I get really into it, almost obsessively, and I started going to every festival I could. At one festival in particular I found out that at night, in addition to the jam sessions in the campground, there was another jam session... the musicians from the various bands get together after all the shows and have incredible jam sessions. I'd tuck myself into a corner and watch and listen in complete awe as the likes of....I was about to do some serious name-dropping here, but changed my mind, just cuz I've gotten to know a few of them, and don't wanna swell their heads up by letting them know how awed I was by all this. :) I'll just say Yup, you have heard of 'em, and leave it at that.
Years later, when I was 29, through a kind of odd set of circumstances, that you might be able to read about later in the disorganization section of my pages, I decided to learn to play the bass. Up until then I was just a listener (and gopher, of course, as all good listeners are, haha.) I'd gone at the guitar once, rather half-heartedly, simply because the guitar, when well played (tastefully and not overdone) is my favorite instrument, and just becuz I'm me, and I'm weird, this made me not want to really be able to play it. The bass was another matter. At that point in my life I needed something, and the bass was it.
In the past year I haven't played as much as I would have liked to, circumstances, you know how it goes. And, I still have my other musical loves; my Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, etc., plus some country like Travis Tritt and Diamond Rio, and lately I've developed a deep fondness (haha) for alternative rock... who knows where my interest will go next?
But bluegrass has my heart and soul, and I'm still just as passionate about it as I ever was, if not more... partly because the bands and the music just keep getting better, more energy infused (I didn't dare use "electric" as an adjective, haha,) and more exciting.
So.. that's my story... why don't you e-mail me with yours?