I had heard NO original blues artists until Clapton, Page, Presley, Hendrix et al introduced me to their music. My Mom and Dad were very much into the Big Band stuff and the Fifties lounge lizards like Sinatra, Johnny Ray, Perry Como and the rest. In those days our first exposure to trad music was what we learned in elementary school, like Caissons go Rolling, Blue Tailed Fly, Working on the Railroad. I do remember some early folk-revival things, Kingston's Tom Dooley,Brothers Four's Green Fields. The first record I was really into (after a brief infatuation with Purple People Eater and My Friend the Witch Doctor) was Richie Valens' first album. My family moved back from California to Kentucky in 1960, and I got hit broadside by Country Music, which I at first hated. Unlike California, it was everywhere. This was the era when the Opry reigned supreme, and every redneck in Kentucky was a Country fan. I also disliked most soul music. The first blues oriented rock group I really enjoyed was the Yardbirds. There was no question to me about I'm a Man...I knew they wrote it.

It wasn't until 1976 that I attended the Telluride Blues Festival and saw John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins that I began to get excited about the traditional blues. It was also in the mid-seventies that I latched onto Newgrass Revival when they were still a bar band at the Storefront Congregation in Louisville. At the time they played a blend of their own "newgrass" material, along with the traditional tunes and Monroe and Jim n Jesse stuff. Along with Poco, Burritos, Marshall Tucker, and the Sweetheart of the Rodeo era Byrds, I learned that Country could be cool. So I guess I came to trad music, folk and blues, through the rock n roll back door.