In thinking about my musical past, I recognize that what stands out the most for me is the same thing that makes certain driving trips memorable also, and that is the people that I have come to know; such as in the course of playing music. I have always had some connection to music as long as I can remember, w-a-a-a-y back into my early years. When I was maybe 2 or 3 years old, our house in Kansas was close to the train tracks that passed through town, and I came to really love watching the trains roll by. The only way my mom could get me to go to sleep was to sing songs about trains to me. As I got older, I was exposed to music when my uncles and grandpa would play old time tunes like "Soldier's Joy", or "Bonaparte's Retreat", stuff like that. When I was about 4 years old I remember grabbing my grandpa's fiddle and trying to play it like a guitar. My uncles on both sides of the family played guitar, fiddle, dobro, banjo, and several of them were in bands. One of them, bless his heart, even passed away between sets at a country music club where his band was playing at. It was my uncles who got me my first guitar, taught me my first chords and steered me in the direction of who to listen to and learn from. The first time I ever played in public was on the back of a flatbed truck at some kind of summer festival in Windsor, Mo., with my uncle and his friends. I think we played some Porter Wagoner songs (the Man from West Plains!). I remember them as musicians who gave their music to me in a way that connected us together with the place where they all came from, which was the Ozarks. Whenever I think of them, I usually hear some music at the same time, and I recall all of the places I went to with them that involved finding out more about the music we played. We went to the Flatpicking Festival in Winfield, Kansas, and the Bluegrass Festival in Knob Noster, Missouri (the first place I ever heard a good strong flatpicker), and also to the state fair in Sedalia, Missouri where we saw Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys when Kenny Baker was playing fiddle with him. After that show my uncle went and talked with Bill about hunting dogs and got me an autographed picture; pretty cool! I still recall how the hair on my neck stood up when they launched into "The Gold Rush", and I got a lump in my throat, and that's when I knew that BLUEGRASS RULES! The last time I saw one of my uncles alive was in Leeton, Missouri at a little street fair where he was playing guitar for his fiddle playing buddy. Now THAT is music. THAT is why you either "get" Uncle Pen, or you don't. THAT is why you don't mind playing "Rank Strangers" in a snotty downtown bar whether anyone likes it or not. THAT is why you'll drive 3 hours to hang out with your friends just to play a few songs, because THAT is music. And when Bill tore into "Uncle Pen", and sang "The people would come from far away...", I'm here to tell you just that: "The people would come from far away..."
That's it, that's why. THAT is the music, my friends.
