Bluegrass Music is a Small Pond...

[edwardofhuncote]

...but not a shallow one. It seriously is a small enough community that nobody is more than two degrees of separation from somebody you know. Tragedy strikes everywhere, even (often especially) fellow/rival musicians... nice to know somebody has your back. Good read from my buddy John Lawless, over at bluegrasstoday.com:

https://bluegrasstoday.com/ibmas-bluegrass-trust-fund-and-ashby-frank/

[cozmik_cowboy]

Wow - 2 degrees, indeed!  I've never even been active in bluegrass (except as a listener), but I'm reading the link and Ashby says he was with Special Consensus; in the early '80s I occasionly bumped into Greg Cahill, and sometimes hung with their then-bassist Mark Edelstein, who loaned our bass player a bass while Gary's was getting modified, and loaned our FOH guy a motorcycle.
Some things never change, apparently among them SC's habit of going through guitarists.  An artist friend of the aforementioned FOH did a painting of the original SC line-up, which hung in a bar (forget the name) they played a lot.  Banjo, bass, & mandolin were stable then, but he got so tired of painting in new guitarists that he finally just put himself in that spot & left it......
And I'm rambling because when I stop I have to go cut up some branches I trimmed the other day, and mow the lawn - and it's 85 freakin' degrees out there (I hate heat!!)
Well, She just yelled up that I'm procrastinating, so I guess I better go.

Peter (who is already drooling for the post-mow beer....)

[keith_h]

Your complaining about 85 degrees? Ha

[edwardofhuncote]

About that 2 degrees of separation...

Special Consensus is part of how I finally got a full-time gig. In 1994, they beat Acoustic Endeavors out in the Pizza Hut Showcase Showdown, in Denton N.C. The fiddle player and mandolin player quit A/E in the aftermath, and both took jobs at Dollywood. The bass player and 'band-leader' (I use the term generally) switched to mandolin, and hired me to play bass. Two years later, I was having the time of my life, starving to death in Nashville... where one night I chanced to meet this cat down on Broadway with a beautiful bass called an Alembic. (now who's rambling?)   

~Gregory (who should also be mowing the weeds, but is stalling for an afternoon thunderstorm)

[cozmik_cowboy]

Your complaining about 85 degrees? Ha

Dude, I complain about 75°!!
Did I mention that I hate heat?  Ideal for me is between 45° & 65°.
Talked to my mother-in-law in Phoenix today; it got down to 109° this week; I'm sorry, but it is absolutely infreakingsane to live in a climate like that!!  I'd join the youngest in AK in a minute - but She complains about IL winters, so.............

Peter (Who doesn't want to hear about "It's a dry heat".  So's an oven; don't want to sit in one.)

[David Houck]

In the 70's, when I was living in Flagstaff, we drove down to Phoenix to see a concert with the Electromagnets (Eric Johnson) and Roy Buchanan.  At some point on that trip, I passed out from the heat.  Flagstaff and Phoenix differ in elevation by about 6,000 feet; and yes, it was the middle of summer.