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Growing Up with Bluegrass in South Georgia

Oakland, California

Story Narrative:

Speaker 1: What traditional music is celebrated in your town?

Speaker 2:  I suppose it depends on who you grow up with in my town, but I know just growing up in the house and listening to the radio, it was really old country music on the eight track stereo, so it was a lot of old George Jones and Hank Williams, Sr. Sometimes Hank, Jr. Marty Robbins. 

Really great stuff. In church, definitely it was a whole bunch of Southern Baptist hymnals, which funnily enough, also kind of merged with bluegrass, which ended up being kind of a thing that a banjo player would play at our church. During the 4th of July celebration or what have you, they would have bluegrass pick-offs or something like that. Circles with bluegrass music and sitting. They'd have cloggers, too, which were basically like the Lords of the Dance, except they're in dresses made out of those table cloths and stuff, and they're hopping around on their clogging shoes.

So, it's kind of like, was like the whole soundtrack to 'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou,' which is pretty fantastic, except when you're 16 and you don't want to live in the city and you've been listening to INXS and Poison and all you want to play some Iron Maiden and jam and drive a car real fast. Looking back on it as an adult, it was pretty neat. 

Asset ID #7125

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