An eclectic blend of Bluegrass and Americana music featuring flatpicking guitar.

12 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Bluegrass, COUNTRY: Country Folk



Details:
From the liner notes: It must have been extremely disconcerting for a young kid who " wanted to be a hillbilly", to see his Grandfather's fiddle with plastic ivy "growing" out of it as it hung on the wall in his aunt's home. Though the fiddle was out of reach, the guitar was not. After obtaining a Kalamazoo guitar from a cousin and paying a whopping $1.75 for a set of Black Diamond strings, young Mike Hancock was on his way! A closet Bluegrass fan, he watched Flat and Scruggs from a Roanoke television station every Saturday night. He was shy about his musical tastes because as a young kid, he knew his friends wouldn't think it was "cool". For a number of years Mike plugged in to Duane Eddy, the Ventures and the Beatles. As a young man stationed in Arizona in the Air Force, he was brought back to acoustic music by the sounds of a local old-time band, The Goose Creek Symphony. A tour of duty in the Netherlands brought exposure to the local bluegrass scene there and more acoustic music. His return to the U.S. allowed Mike to hear the flat-picking styles of Doc Watson and Norman Blake and in Mike's words"....that sort of settled it". Mike still plays and enjoys bluegrass, but he is in love with the old-time sound, declaring that "... old-time music just makes me feel good!"
It is now Mike's turn to make us all feel good! His new guitar CD offers wonderful examples of his old-time playing! And by the way....his grandfather's fiddle no longer hangs on a wall with plastic ivy "growing" out of it. It is now in Mike's hands and with his superb talent we may yet hear it played as it was meant to be.
Listen and enjoy!
Kinney Rorrer
co-host "Back to the Blueridge:
WVTF- FM 89.1



I hope folks will have as much fun listening to this cd as I did making it. Recorded during December '03 and January'04, it gave me the opportunity to play with a lot of old friends who just happen to be some of the best pickers around. Championship Fiddlers Tim Smith and Tommy Malboeuf, Jeff Foxall on Mandolin, Danny Bowers on banjo, Doug and Taylor Rorrer on Guitars and Steve Block on Bass. It had been about six years since we had played together for real, but when we got in the studio... it was like we'd never been apart. No rehersals, just walked in and did it. That's how talented these guys are, and it really stands out on the cd.
Hope You Enjoy It,
Mike Hancock
Maiden, NC