MUSIC & ME #2
On The Road with Ruthie
My stepmother, Ruthie, was an avid country music fan with bluegrass being her favorite genre. She and my father divorced when I was almost five, and she and my half-sister moved 900 miles away. I would only see them during summer vacations until the age of 16 when, after difficulties between my father and me escalated, I moved to Maine to live with them.
Ruthie would haul my sister and me to every country music concert in the state, many areas of New England, and even into Canada. Many of the performers we followed were personal friends of hers — some were New Englanders, others from West Virginia. None of them could be considered true “stars” but they had loyal audiences that attended their annual concerts in school and city auditoriums, amusement parks, and church fellowship halls.
A weekend spent on the road would terminate with Ruthie’s Dodge van depositing my sister and me at the front door of our school minutes before the 8 am bell rang. We would disembark, disheveled from sleeping on the two tiny cots that lined either side of van, badly needing showers, and in a hurry to brush our teeth in the girls’ bathroom before classes began. Ruthie would toss each of us a granola bar to serve as the breakfast we wouldn’t get to eat until lunch.
This morning, in Florida not Maine, I awoke to a thick fog hovering over the lake behind our home. The gray lacy air brought to mind a song from my teenage years in Maine, Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Earl Scruggs. Back in those days, it was a concert favorite played by any country music band with musicians talented enough to pull off the intricate and rapid string plucking.
Here is one of my favorite renditions of that classic. Besides Earl Scruggs on banjo, the performance includes several other famous faces including: Vince Gill on electric guitar, Steve Martin (yes, the comedian/actor) on second banjo, Marty Stuart on mandolin, Leon Russell on organ, and Randy Scruggs on acoustic guitar.
If this song won’t get you up and moving on a Monday, nothing will!
