This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
Senior Wins Bluegrass Kudos
By Jennifer Calhoun, Daily News-Record
When Reed Jones plays guitar, he tells stories.
His fire-quick, bluegrass licks flood the mind with images of revenuers chasing moonshiners through mountain hollows.
EMU senior Reed Jones plays guitar on campus. He and his band won an award from SPBGMA, the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America.
It was those same licks that helped Jones, a 21-year-old Eastern Mennonite University student, and his band, Billie Renee & Cumberland Gap, win first prize in the prestigious Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America in Nashville last month.
"I just thought it would be a fun experience," said Jones, who joined the six-year-old band last August.
"Plus, it’s a decent paycheck," he said of the $3,000 prize.
More Gigs Coming
To many musicians, however, Jones included, the prize is much more than just a paycheck.
For starters, the band will increase their number of gigs.
In addition, they’ll sport the award on the cover of their latest project — an untitled CD that is in the process of being recorded in Sevierville, Tenn.
"Twenty-eight bands from all over the country competed," said Bill Johnson, 67, the public relations arm of Billie Renee and Cumberland Gap.
Johnson said he was "thrilled to death" with the outcome.
"We thought they were good enough to win it," he said.
Jones is a big part of that formula, Johnson said.
"He’s a good musician and a good person," Johnson said, "And he plays that driving, up-tempo rhythm that we like to do."
Hoping To Teach
At first glance, Jones seems an unlikely choice for a bluegrass musician. The 6-foot-2-inch Ohioan is as clean-cut as he is soft-spoken.
A history and social sciences major, Jones hopes to teach middle or high school in Ohio after he graduates in April.
"I really love middle school," Jones said, "I love being able to have fun with the kids."
Jones’ student adviser, Mark Metzler Sawin, said Jones is well-suited for the task.
"He’s a typical, solid, hard working person," said Sawin, associate professor of American History at EMU. "It’s just that he happens to be a really good bluegrass musician."
Sawin has known Jones for four years, since he arrived at EMU as "a pretty typical freshman from Ohio."
But it was Jones’ ideas about music history that began to intrigue Sawin, a self-described "general cultural historian."
Under Sawin’s guidance, Jones began drafting his senior history paper on "The Bluegrass Album," an influential 1980 recording that began a revival in traditional bluegrass music.
The project has given Jones the opportunity to interview his heroes, bluegrass legends Tony Rice and J.D. Crow.
In addition, Sawin hopes the subject material, of which little has been written, could garner Jones the opportunity to write for a much larger audience, like Rolling Stone or other music magazines.
"That’s my goal for it," Sawin said.
In the meantime, though, Jones is just happy to keep telling his stories through the guitar.
"When I go play music, there’s just not a whole lot I’d rather be doing at that time."
