When were you guys first introduced to bluegrass?

[BeginnerMandolinistTyler]

I'm just curious how some of you guys got your start. For me, it was not until I saw O Brother Where Art Thou in my first year of high school(2008) that I actually really heard any sort of bluegrass music. (I think Man of Constant Sorrow is bluegrass"ish".) My mom had like a few Alison Krauss and Union Station (who I know did the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack) cds but I never really listened to them. It was not until last year that my percussion friend told me about Punch Brothers and that's how I transitioned. I use to listen to modern hard rock and suddenly switched over bluegrass and big band jazz. I can't wait to hear your stories.

[Londy]

My first instrument is piano. I have played for many years writing original material and for some local plays and back up on some other folks CDs. I like the creative aspects of writing not so much performing. Being open minded, I like to look for new bands, listen to new music, and see what others are producing. A few years ago, my wife bought me a mandolin for a Christmas gift. What a great gift idea! She purchased this with the notion that I would dig into my Italian roots and play Italian songs. Well, I did not know anything about playing a stringed instrument so I was curious and started noodling.

I started reading, researching and buried myself in the multitude of videos on YouTube. I started to see how versatile the instrument really is. It’s not just classical, Italian or bluegrass. This was truly an underrated instrument. I saw an interview of John Paul Jones that pretty much changed me. He shared about his background and musical journey from Zeppelin to experimental and bluegrass. I saw others playing different genres of songs from Jimi Hendrix, Chopin, Alternative rock like REM, Jazz tunes and then I learned how deep rooted the mandolin is to blues. Just taking the time to listen and learn and not be narrow minded about music really changed everything for me.

I am still a work in progress (let me emphasize, a LOT of needed progress). However, I am enjoying the mandolin more now than ever and I feel I expanded on the good music I can make using the mandolin. I have since purchased my first custom Collings MTO and it is a real treasure to have such an amazing instrument in your hands. It makes all the difference.

[rb3868]

I'm seriously betting that for a bunch of people it was the ballad of jed clampett. we had some Foggy Mountain Boys stuff when I was a kid, then not much until college.

[Willie Poole]

I played lead guitar in a small group when I was in high school and the school had a talent show one weekend and my band entered and was blown away by a bluegrass band, so my band right then and there decided we would learn the instruments that were used in a bluegrass band...I had played a little mandolin before that but mostly older country songs, we sort of patterened ourselves after Mac Wiseman and Flat and Scruggs, when Mac would come out with a new record I would bust my butt to find it and we would learn the songs, only two to a record in those days, later he made some with four songs on a 45 RPM record....Our band entered a talent show on WNBW TV in Washington D.C.(now WRC-TV) and won hands down...I guess I have been playing bluegrass ever since that talent show....I won`t say how many years ago that was....

Willie

[JeffD]

I had been playing mandolin for many many years. Doing old time, and traditional Irish, New England fiddle tunes and French Canadian fiddle tunes, playing contra dances and jamming regularly. I was vaguely aware of bluegrass, in a way in the background sort of way, and I knew who Bill Monroe was but I hadn't knowingly heard his playing.

I ran a coffeehouse and we held a jam every Tuesday, a fiddle tune jam, and had a live band on weekends. Through the coffeehouse I met the local bluegrass community, and started a bluegrass jam on Monday nights. It was while hosting the Monday night jam that I really started listening to bluegrass.

It was an acquired taste. It took me a while to warm up to it. But soon enough I was listening a lot and going to the bluegrass side of the festivals I attended. (The festivals were not as segregated. One would be exposed to all kinds of acoustic music, old time, folk, singer songwriter, traditional Irish, contra dance, and bluegrass.)

Anyway, I eventually got "there" and then came here.

[allenhopkins]

Club 47, Palmer Street, Cambridge MA, 1961-65; Charles River Valley Boys (Bob Siggins, John Cooke, Joe Val, Everett Allan Lilly on bass), Osborne Brothers with Benny Birchfield on guitar, Bill Keith & Jim Rooney. Bought a few records, a no-name 5-string banjo, fooled around with it when in the army, found a 'teens A-1 in my grandfather's attic, started a trio with my brother John on guitar and Bob Olyslager on banjo, around 1970.

[BeginnerMandolinistTyler]

Thanks guys! I love these stories for some reason. I guess I love seeing where people started out. I started on piano like every Asian person does and I moved to guitar and played rock/punk "music". I started percussion in 6th grade and played all the way through high school. If you guys watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in 2011, my high school marching band was in it so technically you saw me drum alittle. Haha keep the stories coming. I think it's so interesting to see how some people start out immediately introduced to bluegrass and mandolin and people like me, which I never thought in a million years I would like bluegrass, end up so fascinated with this incredible music! Keep any stories coming!

[almeriastrings]

I think it was probably back around 1970 in my case. I had heard some Doc Watson stuff, and was blown away by it, and had started to learn flatpicking, then a friend who was a big bluegrass fan lent me a stack of Monroe LP's for the weekend.... that was it...started a very long journey, via Flatt & Scruggs, Don Reno, Dan Crary, Norman Blake, Tony Rice, Newgrass Revival, and so on.

[Mike Bunting]

I first heard BG via the folk scare. I think the first band I saw was the Greenbriar Boys with the great Frank Wakefield at the club I worked at in 1964 and a couple of years later I saw old "what's his name" and the Blue Grass Boys played at a country bar down the street called the Country Palace. I went to McGill at the same time as Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Anna taught me All the Good Times. My first album was Flatt and Scruggs Live at Carnegie Hall. Bluegrass, except for the first 18 years of my life, has been at the core of my musical life, (although not to the exclusion of many other genres that I am seriously into).

[Ivan Kelsall]

For me it was back in 1963.At the time i had a banjo with 4 strings on it & i was strumming it like i did with my Uke.I heard my first bluegrass tunes - "Earl's Breakdown" & "Flinthill Special" played by The Barrier Brothers on their LP 'Golden Bluegrass Hits' that a friend of mine had recorded from the LP onto a reel to reel tape recorder. I truly didn't know what i was listening to,but 2 weeks later i had the LP & was looking for a good 5 stringer. The rest as they say.......,
Ivan

[Mike Snyder]

Listening to WSM's Grand Old Opry riding around drinking beer on Saturday night in Hicktown, Kansas. Probably saw the Darlins on Andy Griffith about the same time, and Deliverance. The picking started with John Prine and Willie and Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker. The first trip to Winfield in '76 or '77 was a life changer. I chased bluegrass for way too long before I realised that I am an Old-Time player, and always was. Some bluegrass is inevitable, it's what people play sometimes, some people. I play it better now than ever because I play my style of licks I've come to from the Old-Time and ITM route. I'm not a bluegrass mandolin player. That realization has allowed me to play bluegrass tunes, just not really Monroeish or bluegrassish. Sounds just like me, if that makes any sense. I haven't been kicked out of a bluegrass jam for a long time, now.

[billkilpatrick]

1961 - around the fountain in washington square, nyc. it hurt my ears to listen to it then (way too loud, too many notes ... cluster plucks on the banjo - ouch!) and it still hurts now.

[courses]

The Bluegrass Inn, 1973. Oooowie what times we had.....

[AlanN]

The music:

Will The Circle Be Unbroken album (first one)
Old & In The Way
Country Gazette Traitor In Our Midst

The mandolin:

Frank Wakefield in the Saratoga taverns

(in others word, during the Pleistocene era...)

[jake-mando]

It was back in the early 80's. I was around 11 or 12 years old. A music store that I took my first lessons at had a young banjo player and mandolin player that they were working with. At the time I was playing guitar and singing. Mostly Country and light rock. They called me up and asked if I wanted to play Bluegrass. I said play what grass?? I figured what the heck, and went to meet this group and see what BG was. I fell in love with it right away. I joined the group. We were a project for the owners of the music store. They taught us to sing harmonies and leads together. Then worked with us on a individual basis on our picking. We later added a bass player. (This was all done at Homegrown Music in Calgary Alberta) We played and jammed at the Foothill Bluegrass Club often. In house concerts at the music store, and any old folks home that would listen to us. We broke up a fews years later over creative differences. Mostly me wanting to go into Country and add a drummer! I don't know what I was thinking?? Kids!

My first BG albums were Skaggs and Rice, and The Seldom Scene. When I got into the Mandolin a couple years back I found my BG roots again. So glad I did. I'm a huge fan of the current NewGrass stuff. The Box Cars, Sierra Hull, The Grascals, Lonesome Riverband, and anything Ricky Skaggs does. ( He is my idol )

[Drew Egerton]

For me it was 2003, the year I graduated high school and started college. I had a long time friend that had always been into country and bluegrass but I was into the more pop stuff growing up (Except I always really liked Elvis for whatever reason, weird being born in 85, right?). I started listening to country thanks to his influence in around 2000 and got my first guitar in 2001.
After a year or so of learning chords, strumming along to the country radio, my parents got me a Doc Watson DVD on flatpicking. It was waaaaay too advanced for me for the most part, but after having the attitude that "I know all the chords (I didn't) and I know all there is to know about playing guitar (I didn't and still don't), it really opened up my eyes to something new to learn.
My friend started picking the banjo Scruggs style and we did a lot of practicing together and went to a few local jams. I was hooked!
Another big influence on me was/is the Steep Canyon Rangers, since I grew up in Brevard, NC where two of them are from. Their traditional but a little progressive style really suit my tastes and seeing them live every couple of months (before they were touring the world) was inspiring.
Then I started getting into other stuff like Del McCoury, Rhonda Vincent, IIIrd Tyme Out, etc.
In 2004 a friend down the hall in my dorm had a cheap mandolin and a cheap beginner book. She let me borrow it for a weekend and I was hooked immediately by it and still am!
Biggest mando influences have been Mike Guggino, Ronnie McCoury, Wayne Benson, Alan Bibey, Shawn Lane, Adam Steffey, etc.

[Charley wild]

The first Bluegrass I heard was Bill Monroe on the Opry in the mid fifties. It wasn't called Bluegrass then. The first major band I saw was Flatt & Scruggs in Charlotte, NC in late 1962. They were the middle act. Chet Atkins opened, then F&S, then Marty Robbins. Quite a show. Lester And Earl were in peak form as were the Boys. Josh and Jake went through the first few rows handing out coupons for Martha White Flour. I got one from Josh who was my music hero; made my day!

[JEStanek]

Probably the Deliverance Soundtrack my dad had on vinyl was my introduction. Interestingly, I made a cassette tape of it on one side and Purple Rain on the other that I used to listen to while biking through my home town in like 1984 or 85 in my teens. Both records have a lot of drive to them!

Jamie

[xiledscot]

1982 Old Scotia Bar,Glasgow.I was part of a traditional music session.Half way through some guy pulled out a 5 string banjo and I was hooked.Bluegrass in Scotland in the 80's was pretty popular.Local bands like Old Hickory and Limited Edition set the pace but were by no means alone.Bands from the USA like Bob Paisley,Bill Munroe and Crary ,Hickman and Berlin made frequent visits.Peter Rowan came to our little village in the highlands and played to an audience of SIX!

[dawgmike94]

Honestly, I don't remember a time when I wasn't listening to bluegrass. The very first song I can ever remember hearing was "Hard Hearted" by Jim & Jesse. My dad was and is a big bluegrass fan and that was what I listened to since I was born, probably.

[Denny Gies]

My wife dragged me into a new/used record store in Tallahassee, Fl. She demanded that I buy the "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" album, that's right a vinyl album. I had been a die hard Stones and Zeppelin fan. Listening to the Dirt Band and all the others really hit a chord (pun intended) with me. From then on, around '75, it's been bluegrass for me. Thanks for asking. These are some fun stories.

[sweed]

I went to several music festivals from 2009-2011 and then caught this show at mountain jam, some mysterio named sam bush came out there and started playing some funky little instrument, and blew me away on his solo. THATS how i even learned what a mandolin was! (never had any acquaintance with musical instruments before), so eventually this video is what got me all started.

[Pete Counter]

my percussion friend told me about Punch Brothers and that's how I transitioned.

The Punch Brothers isnt bluegrass, make sure you know they play alot of genres using the same instruments! Get some copies of the bluegrass album band, there were like 5 or 6 volumes of them. Thats what initially drew alot of us who werent paying attention before then!

[Laird]

I would have figured more folks would have cited the Beverly Hillbillies theme by Flatt and Scruggs, which was a mainstay of my childhood. Not that it drew me to Bluegrass, though.

For that to happen I had to sink deep, deep into the Grateful Dead, fall in love with Workingman's Dead, and come out on the other side listening to Old and in the Way. It took the Dead (and the various associated "refreshments") to make Bluegrass seem cool to this barefoot hippie.

[AKmusic]

Born and raised in the south, so I listened to what is called bluegrass pretty much all my life. But it wasn't what I chose to listen to - but what I heard - mostly while visiting family in north Alabama. So, I knew what it was. But early in life (50's and early 60's) it was known as "hillbilly music" - and had a social stigma attached to it that wasn't very flattering for the younger folks. And I guess because my parents weren't "in to it" and my peers avoided it like the plague - I never really listened when I heard it.

I didn't really take an interest in playing bluegrass until I heard "Old And In The Way" in the 70's. Then it became "cool".