Trivia: What Do They Have In Common?

Additional Bowden Comments

Yes, all those performers and organizations are from Missouri. Some us never realize that Missouri touches Kentucky, the Blue Grass State. Even ol’ Daniel Boone pulled up stakes and left Kentucky for Missouri cause Kentucky was getting too crowded (he could see a new neighbor’s chimney smoke from his place).

Indeed John Hartford was born in NYC, but his mother and father were living in St. Louis Missouri and John Hartford was proud to be from St Louis. And when it came to riverboats, John’s “other” passion, Kentucky is bounded on the north and west (where Missouri lies) by the Ohio River. All well traveled by riverboats from way back yonder.

Rhonda Vincent as a member of her family band The Sally Mountain Show always proudly declared her love for her home state of Missouri.

CJ Lewandowki with the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys is a proud Missourian, and the “twang” in his voice shows it.

The Dillards, the two brothers and the other two guys, were all Missouri pickers, who headed west for the supposed endless fountain of work as musicians around Los Angeles. Their timing was perfect — they were among the first REAL bluegrass bands in California and had the extra good fortune to be “discovered” by the Andy Griffith Show where the appeared as The Darling Family. Later The Dillards helped establish Newgrass.

Darrin Vincent of Dailey and Vincent is brother to Rhonda Vincent (he played for years in the family band), so he’s from Missouri too.

Chris Brashear, the fiddler, guitarist and songwriter who now lives in Massachusetts and writes for the HVBA website, is a stout Missouri fiddler who knew many of the old timer Missouri fiddlers. Chris now lives in Massachusetts. Missouri had its own tradition of country fiddling, blending the more eastern influences of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia etc. with the boomin Texas style. Fiddling Mike Hartgrove of the Bluegrass Cardinals and the Lonesome River Band is also a Missourian, but he tends to like the more eastern fiddle sounds.

Finally the organization “SPBGMA” is based in Missouri. You can tell by their annual awards that their voting membership much prefers the more traditional sounds of bluegrass music. Go to their February convention in Nashville some year (take an instrument to jam) and get to know THEIR feelings about good bluegrass.