Friday, December 18, 2009

Sam Bush makes bluegrass dreams come true


Sam Bush has these dreams. They’re not the dreams from his youth, like when he would imagine himself playing on stage with the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe. That dream and many others have come true.
Hundreds of mandolin players tread the paths Bush cleared with his New Grass Revival band mates in the 1970s and 80s, and Bush’s new album, Circles Around Me, stands as his most self-actualized and best-received solo work. Still boyish at 57, Bush has forged a place for himself as one of acoustic music’s respected elders. He won a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Americana Music Honors & Awards. And his dreams are different now.
“I seem to dream a lot these days about trying to get to the show,” he said. “And I guess that just means that I still really want to get to the show. The older I get, the more I love to play. This gift of playing music can leave you at any time.”
Bush has twice survived cancer, and the gift of playing has not left him, save for a time in the mid-1990s when he broke his right elbow, and another time in the mid-’90s when he broke his left elbow. Clumsiness has proven more problematic than disease. He has ceased touring through the end of the year while recovering from a non-clumsiness-related foot surgery, but that hasn’t kept him from playing his mandolin. He released Circles Around Me, his third solo album in five years, in October.“I was inspired by (fiddle great) Vassar Clements when it came to practicing,” Bush said. More...

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