Into this black river of doubt

The International Bluegrass Festival is happening this week, and many events are happening right outside my office building.

In other words, that high lonesome sound is echoing throughout the canyons of lower Fayetteville St.

Sir Walter himself about to start pickin'

I didn’t exactly grow up listening to a lot of bluegrass; as I have mentioned before, my Dad dearly loved country music. But it was more the pedal-steel weepers of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb than the banjo and fiddle tunes of Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe.

My hardcore introduction to the music was The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s magnum opus, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Much of the music was a revelation to me, but I especially took to Jimmy Martin and Earl Scruggs. I eventually dug deeper and deeper, and while I am in no way an expert on this music as I feel I am on the British invasion, a great deal of bluegrass resonates with me greatly.

Yesterday during lunchtime I walked over the Convention Center, and an impromptu group was jamming spiritedly on this piece of perfection:

And damn if it didn’t sound like the distant, and unfulfilled, promise of a dream.