The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119163 Message #2581955
Posted By: Jayto
05-Mar-09 - 02:28 PM
Thread Name: What Brought You to Trad?
Subject: RE: What Brought You to Trad?
I was totally hardcore for years. I was into extreme sports and traveled all around doing shows for my sponsor. I live punk and metal. My father used to listen to Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, and Doc Watson when I ws a kid and I loved country and bluegrass but never listened to it or was interested at all. When I heard it I dug it but on my own it was straight hardcore. One day my friend and I were hanging out drinking beer (yes we were only 16 but hey what can I say lol) and he broke out Steve Earle's Copperhead Road. I loved the Bagpipes (at that time I didn't realize it was a keyboard) and I loved the mandolin. It had an Appalchian sound to me then and I really dug it. I got to thinking about playing the guitar about that time and got my Dad's guitar and figured out how to play Copperhead Road. The that same time period there is a TV show that comes on the Kentucky educational television channel (KET for you that are familiar with the channel) that had Merle Travis playing Cannonball Rag for a theme song. I wanted to learn the song because I liked it but had no idea how to do it or what exactley Travis was doing. I was hanging out in a music store in Madisonville Ky (the closest town of any size to my hometown). This guy started playing the song and I about choked. I went to him and asked him to teach me the song. He laughed and said he didn't play it right and i need to find Eddie Pennington to teach me how to play it right. He also told me that the choke style thumbpicking originated right here where I am from ( I know all the debates about the origins so please don't argue with me about this. I am just telling what I was told at the time). I loved the idea tht it came form here and Merle Travis grew up the son of a coal miner just like me. I went home and asked my mom if she had ever heard of Eddie Pennington and she started laughing. She told me Eddie is my cousin that move away several yrs ago and I used to go to his house all the timw as a kid when he lived in my hometown. Mom called Eddie and he was thrilled I wanted to learn how to play Travis style and he took me under his wing and taught me. From there I covered myself in folk music, folklore whatever I could find. I started searching for old men around here that knew Mose Rager, Merle Travis, Ike Everly (the everly brothers dad and another pioneer of w.ky thumbpicking), Plucker English, Arnold Shultz, Kennedy Jones,.. Any of the old originals. I got back into Doc Watson who I had worshipped since a kid. My love for doc never faultered during all my punk yrs. Anyway that is how came to folk. I know this is a long post but like many I on here I am passionate about it. Folk music changed my life. It took a wild ass adrenaline junkie trouble maker and turned me totally around. It gave me a passion for knowledge, showed me a talent I had no idea I had, gave me a greater apprecition for the community I came from, and more thing than i can list. Through playing it I have provided for my famiy, met my wife and after my divorce my girlfriend, through those meetings I have 3 beautiful kids, met all my heros (the living ones of course), made lifetime friends, traveled everywhere,... etc. I cannot imagine my life without folk music I really can't It has shaped me and my life and my kids lives so much i cannot imagine life without it.