MerleFest anyone? Starts tomorrow! I might show up Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on how behind I still am on my real-world job.
This is part of a reply that I posted in the "Major Influences on Bluegrass Music" thread: "The parallels between bebop and bluegrass are many. Aside from sharing virtually the same birthday, each was created by a small, readily identifiable group of founders—unlike, say the blues, whose origins are more murky. And interestingly, several of those men were born within a 60-mile radius: Earl Scruggs, born in Shelby, North Carolina; Doc Watson in Deep Gap, North Carolina; Thelonious Monk in Rocky Mount, North Carolina; John Coltrane from Hamlet, North Carolina; and Dizzy Gillespie from Cheraw, South Carolina." It's from an address given by Roger Brown, the president of the Berklee College of Music, at the IBMA meeting last fall.