Music and Time

I know a lot of musicians are probably like me in that different periods of time in their lives are synchronous with music. Let me explain some. From the time I was old enough to start having memories, I can remember jam sessions in the living room of my Grandpa and Grandma Apple’s house. I remember how the old time music sounded in that little small living room with the hardwood floor. I remember summer vacation from school there also. After dinner (the term we used for lunch) Papaw (my Grandpa Apple) would often times play the banjo he had or other instruments around the house. I hadn’t yet taken up an instrument, but those sounds, sometimes archaic, surely made an indelible impression on my young mind. During those same summer days, I’d often play records on Papaw’s old turntable. That’s where I first heard the sounds of Flatt and Scruggs.

A few years later in the mid-1980s, I was listening to the bluegrass program “The Ozark Mountain Hop” on KABF radio out of Little Rock, Arkansas and heard the Virginia Squires for the first time. If memory serves me right, the first song I heard from them was “The Girl I Left In Sunny Tennessee.” I was hooked. I bought every recording they made. I had never heard someone play the bass like Ronnie Simpkins. I was really knocked out when I heard him take a solo on “Turkey In the Straw.” To this day he’s one of my favorite bass players and I’ve come to know him and his brother Rickie, who is also a great musician. One of the most tasteful fiddle breaks I’ve heard to this day is Rickie’s solo on “Hard Times In Kentucky.” Listen and see. Their fire and enthusiasm and musicianship really set my own desire to become a good musician ablaze. Around this same time I heard the Lonesome River Band’s very first recording on KABF. They were to also become an influence. I can’t end out the 1980s without mentioning that Tony Rice and more progressive sounds from bands such as New Grass Revival were also sticking in my mind.

In my next post, I’ll move into the 1990s, and the sounds that shaped that era for me.