ShadowGrass is a band of young bluegrass musicians from the Blue Ridge mountain towns of North Carolina and Virginia. Ranging in age from thirteen to twenty-one, they met up at a fiddlers contest and decided to band together. Soon they were playing old time music across the US, including the Montana Folk Festival. Here’s fourteen-year-old singer and guitarist Presley Barker.
Presley Barker: I started when I was seven years old, and Doc Watson was my first big inspiration. I knew when I first heard “Black Mountain Rag” on the radio, that’s what I wanted to do, play flatpicking guitar. I just have a great time doing it.
Nick Spitzer: Luke, tell me about how you got involved.
Luke Morris: Well I started playing when I was about ten years old. Basically my parents wanted me to take some music lessons, and they brought out a mandolin one day, and I just kind of fell in love with the instrument. I’d say I was about fourteen when this band started, and I had just started going around to fiddlers’ conventions to compete. I just happened to run into these guys and really went into it head first and just fell in love with the music.
Kyser George: I’m Kyser George, and I play the bass.
NS: And how old are you?
KG: Thirteen.
NS: Now what got you into being a bass player and being involved with old-time country?
KG: My dad is a big bass player. He actually played in an R&B beach music group. I grew up listening to all those James Brown, Ray Charles, and all the good stuff.
NS: But you’re playing bass in a bluegrass old-time country band.
KG: That’s the other genre that really drew me in because I like that hard-driving rhythm.
NS: What’s your creation story with these guys?
Clay Russell: Well, I’m Clay Russell, I’m seventeen and I play bluegrass banjo. I’ve been around the music all my life, my dad and grandpa played. My dad was in a bluegrass band, and I always loved listening to it, and one year for Christmas I got a little banjo. He ended up teaching me everything I needed to know, and the next day we went and got lessons. I decided to start competing in fiddlers’ conventions once I started into the three-finger bluegrass style, and then I met these guys at one of the fiddlers’ conventions. We decided to put a competition band together, and ever since we’ve been picking.
NS: Fiddle contests are competitive, so you could be up against some of these guys.
CR: Oh yeah, I mean it’s a family, we learn from each experience at competitions, but the competition does push us to try to do better than the other, you know. I mean that keeps us going.
NS: But now you’re playing for the home team, everyone’s on the same team here.
CR: Yeah that’s true.
NS: And is it always competition?
CR: I think it really don’t matter what you play, it’s just go up there and have a good time, hope for the best.
Daniel Greeson: I’m Daniel Greeson on the fiddle. For me, what has drawn me to the music over the years is just that everyone is so welcoming, and you can go to a bluegrass concert and meet the person that you’ve been looking up to for the past ten years and trying to learn what they do, and they’ll give you pointers and tips on anything you ask, whether it’s traveling, music, singing, they’re there to help, and that’s what’s really neat to me is how kind the people are.
NS: So I’ve got an idea, how about we pull the instruments out of the cases and just demo a few things, can we do that?
PB: How about we do a little “Honey You Don’t Know My Mind”?
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