Musical roots

We all have experience of discovering new music that just blows us away. Particularly when it is something you expected to dislike. Growing up in Kuna, Idaho with real cowboys and rodeo queens in my high school, I generally tended to run hard the other way. I wouldn't even wear blue jeans because that is what Future Farmers of America and cowboys wore. Not this child. I was getting out of there and going to college, preferably a good one some ways away. Yeah, I know. I was being a real snot at the time. But high school does that to us all in one way other another. Needless to say, country music was not my favorite.

So after a few months far away at Stanford University in California, I remember watching a couple of blue grass musicians playing live on campus, finding my toe tapping and thinking this was actually kind of cool. Then someone played a Flatt and Scruggs record for me and I was really blown away. So here is Earl Scruggs playing live in someone's backyard, with Doc Watson, who was to become another icon for me. One of the high points of my radio career at Stanford was getting to do an interview with Doc Watson before a concert.

And you have to love the 1970s clothes and hair.