The Cumberland Band is, from left, Ed Brown (banjo), Tiffany Rogers (guitar), Billy Gaston (guitar), Willard Hamilton (fiddle) and Preston Cates (bass).If you go
› What: Coke Ovens Bluegrass Festival.› When: 6-9 p.m. Friday, June 3; 1-10 p.m. Saturday, June 4; plus fiddle workshop with Jackie Miller 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday (all times Central).› Where: Dunlap Coke Ovens Coal Mining Museum and Park, 350 Mountain View Drive, Dunlap, Tenn.› Admission: $4 donation Friday; $6 donation Saturday.› Phone: 423-309-0069, 423-949-2294.› Website: cokeovens.org.
When Ed Brown talks bluegrass music, it’s hard not to put a little extra weight behind words backed by more than 60 years of picking and grinning.
Brown leads the Sequatchie Valley traditional ‘grass ensemble Cumberland Band, for which he sings and plays guitar and harmonica. Despite these other musical dabblings, it was the banjo that first spoke to Brown at age 15 when he heard it on a radio show while living in Michigan.
“I didn’t realize what it was,” he says. “It was Earl Scruggs playing. My dad was there, and I asked him, ‘What is that?’ My dad told me, ‘Well, that’s a five-string banjo.'”
At the time, the area around Detroit had seen a massive influx of Southern bluegrass musicians, who resettled there seeking factory work. Brown’s father was one of these, and he played in local clubs alongside legendary fiddler Arthur Smith and North Carolina transplant Wiley Birchfield. A late-night, post-gig jam session by Birchfield and Smith at Brown’s home all but sealed the teen’s interest in pursuing bluegrass music on his own.