I don’t get starstruck very easily, and there aren’t a lot of famous people that I really care to meet. I’ve always just had the attitude that they are just the same as everyone else, but more people know who they are. I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet some of my musical heroes: Ron Block, Jerry Douglas, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, Rhonda Vincent, and the members of the band Caedmon’s Call. One of the highlights of my life was at a bluegrass festival on Jekyll Island in 1995. I was only 18 years old and I had gone to the festival mostly to see Dr. Ralph Stanley play. During his set, right before one song, he said, “This next song is dedicated to Ralph Tanner, from Milledgeville, Georgia.” I was shocked and elated! Unbeknownst to me, my dad had spoken to Ralph Stanley beforehand and asked him to mention my name sometime during his set. He knew how much I loved and admired Dr. Stanley, and wanted to surprise me. Needless to say, I was floored!
There are only two other people in the world that I’ve ever wanted to meet. One of them was Bill Monroe, the Father of bluegrass music. The other was Earl Scruggs, the master of the banjo. I didn’t really get into bluegrass until I was in my mid teens, but I feel in love fast. The first bluegrass CD I ever bought was purchased indiscriminately. I was in a music store and I wanted to buy something different that I wasn’t too familiar with. So I just began looking through the different categories of music and I made it to the bluegrass section. One CD that caught my eye was “Two Highways”, by Alison Krauss & Union Station. Though I had heard of Alison Krauss before, I wasn’t familiar with her music. So, I bought the CD and listened to it on the way home. From the very first plink of the banjo on that first song to the final pull of the fiddle across the bow on the last, I was hooked. What really impressed me was that Alison Krauss was 17 at the time that CD was recorded, and I was about to turn 17 myself. From then on I was completely addicted to bluegrass music. Its stripped down sound with the combination of guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, and bass sounded so simple, yet very complex. There was nothing like it, and my ears rejoiced.
From Union Station I worked my way back to the Seldom Scene, Bela Fleck, the Cox Family, The Nashville Bluegrass Band, John McCuen, Claire Lynch, Mac Wiseman, Jimmy Martin, Ralph Stanley, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and ultimately to the founder of bluegrass, Bill Monroe. The more I listened to bluegrass, the more interested I became in it. It blew my mind that this wonderful and exciting form of music could be traced back to one man, Bill Monroe. Though he didn’t do it all by himself, there would be no bluegrass music if it hadn’t been for Bill Monroe. His unique music, with its trademark ‘high lonesome sound’ was the basis of what was to later be known as bluegrass, named after his band, the Bluegrass Boys. At the time, he was still living and performing, even though he was already in his 80s. I did get to see him perform once at the Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville. It was a highlight. But, alas, I never got to meet him. He passed away in September 1996. The one person I wanted to meet was now out of this world.
This week marked the passing of one of the founders of what was to become bluegrass, Earl Scruggs. He was another person that I really wanted to meet, but that never happened. He was an innovator of the banjo and it was his and Lester Flatt’s addition to Bill Monroe’s band that really set the standard of the sound of bluegrass. I, along with millions of other music lovers, am eternally grateful for his contribution to music and life. His legacy will live on in his recordings and whenever anyone picks up a banjo and plays in the three-finger style.
