The 48s just got done giving two presentations at two different schools — one at Skyview Elementary in Oakdale and the other at Richardson Elementary in North Saint Paul.
We’ve been giving these history-of-bluegrass presentations for a while now, but lately we’ve been doing them more than ever. And not just for kids.
We’re making them a bigger part of what we do because they’re so much fun and audiences love them, and when we open our mouths to talk about this music, we rediscover a lot of what drew us to it in the first place….its history, and its connection to American music writ large (jazz, blues, gospel).
And it also reminds us just how amazing it sounded the first time we heard a guitar, fiddle, banjo, mando and bass working well together.
It’s good to reconnect with that every now and then. It’s what inspired us to put in the long hours of practice time and to drop the needle on all those old records, over and over and over.
