As Promised on my home page, we’ll uncover the mysteries of the musical connections in my family.

 

There are no stars in my family to claim, so I’ll just give you our musical interests.  My grandmother, Hedvig Andersen, was from Denmark. She played piano and was the church organist in my hometown of Redfield South Dakota. My earliest  remembrances  of her music was listening to her play her piano in her living room  when we came to visit from California while my dad was in the Navy. She would sit at the piano and play while little Stevie sat next to her on the piano bench. Gramma was quite impressed that Stevie could pick out melodies by ear very early on. So that is where my love of music got its’ start.

 

When I got older and started playing the baritone uke, I started playing a finger picking style that I carried over to my first real guitar. I developed it on my own as I never took lessons. When I got brave enough to actually play in front of people, I discovered what I was doing in an interesting way. I took my guitar to my first girlfriend’s house and played some folk songs. Sheila’s parents were there but I didn’t know her father also played guitar. He informed me the style I played was called “Travis picking”. Wow, I didn’t know it had a name.

Here comes the connection. My mother’s parents, Norton and Francis Owen were from the Louisville Kentucky area. I had never been to Louisville until long after I had begun to play guitar.

Some 45 years later I learned , “Travis picking” was named after the country legend, Merle Travis who was famous for that style of play. By the way, Merle wrote many popular country songs in his career, like “Sixteen Tons” made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford.  Merle Travis is from the Louisville Kentucky area. Maybe I learned “Travis picking” through osmosis from my “people” of Kentucky.

Well, there’s the connections I promised. Hope you found them as interesting as I did.