Re: Column: Let's Hear It For Local Bands
We have a bunch of bands that do bluegrass and near-bluegrass, playing around Rochester: Blue Ridge Country Ramblers, Group Therapy, Crooked North, Brothers Blue, String Theory, Dady Brothers, Bristol Mountain Bluegrass, and a few more I can't call to mind offhand. They play clubs, local or regional festivals, private functions; they give programs in libraries, seniors' residences, town concerts, schools. None of them, as far as I know, are full-time "professionals." Sometimes they may catch an opening gig for a national act passing through, though we're surely not a regular stop on whatever "bluegrass circuit" may exist. There are also a few regular BG jams around, and weekly bluegrass "open mic" evenings in local music clubs.
I'd venture to say that almost everyone in our area who has heard live bluegrass, heard it from a local band, at least for the first time. And whichever local or regional musicians have gone on to play bluegrass as pros, cut their teeth in one of those bands. Bluegrass remains one of the music genres that thrives on broad amateur and semi-pro participation, and that's seems true even here, far from its origins in the Southern mountains.
Allen Hopkins
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