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Ramblin' with Sugargrove

On this episode of The Midnight Ramble, host Tom Duffee has Miami County band Sugargrove in the studio.

In the first segment, avid banjoist Duffee learns of the origins of Sugargrove's 1968 Gibson banjo, followed by a live performance of a pair of Bill Monroe tunes: an off-the-cuff rendition of Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and a more rehearsed instrumental,  "Jerusalem Ridge."

In the second part of their appearance on WYSO, the band leads off with a Jim Croce cover called "Time" ("NOT Bad Leroy Brown," as frontman Darryl Duncan puts it). Tom Duffee learns the saga of yet another instrument, this time a hand-built custom BRW mandolin. Finally, the band closes out with an original song called "Breakin' Rocks," about a man stuck in prison.

sugargrovep2.mp3
Sugargrove part two

Tom Duffee has been playing and listening to traditional and country sounds all his life. He started playing the banjo when he was twelve. In his later teens, he started playing in public, sharing in the rich old-time and bluegrass heritage that exists in the Miami Valley. For the past 35 years, he has played in the old-time string band, the Corndrinkers. In 1971, he started programming traditional music on WYSO. With his brothers Dan and Jim, the Duffee brothers initiated a Saturday night bluegrass show as well as a morning offering, Rise When the Rooster Crows, both of which remain on WYSO to this day. Tom's wife, Linda, with whom he shares his life and his music, is a renowned fiddler in the Miami Valley area.