Quote of the month (2)

All his [Don Reno's] shows were about establishing that link with an audience... I found out later on with Monroe was to a degree - you know, that that was the most important thing about being a live performer is the rapport you're building up with that audience.

I love to play some of my tunes, like 'Forty years late', and 'Rural retreat', and some of those things; but when I do it in front of an audience they don't really mean anything to me. The tune doesn't mean anything sort of at all. If somebody hollers for 'Foggy Mountain breakdown' I'd as soon play that as I would to play one of my tunes. Because what you're playing, the music is just a vehicle for enhancing that interaction between the audience and the performer. And the tune really don't matter.

You know, it dawned on me after playing 'Mule skinner blues' to open every show for four years running that I played in, and I never got tired of it. And it was two years after I quit the band [the Blue Grass Boys] that I figured out why not. In hindsight. And understanding that those tunes are just vehicles for expressing that emotional moment that exists between the performer and the audience.

Butch Robins, from a tape recording on the Soundboard Chronicle YouTube channel.

© Richard Hawkins