Toronto banjo maker and ace bluegrass player Buddy Weston came from Czechoslovakia about thirty years ago. He was a fanatic about Flatt and Scruggs and told me that bootleg albums were as rare as gold. The first banjo he made (when he was in his teens) had a wooden head painted white, 'cause from the picture on the album cover he couldn't tell it was a skin head. Buddy's band in Canada was called "Cross Country Grass" and I was briefly in it as (an incompetent) mandolin player. One of Toronto's best bluegrass fiddlers, Jan Henko, is also Czech. Heard Druha Trava a while ago (from Mudcatter Peter T. I believe) and loved them.

Rick