Ron Block

the band.

And I remember when Ron Block took the job, I remember where I was sitting when I got the phone call, someone said, hey, did you hear who Allison has playing banjo? And in my naive mind, I'm thinking, are you telling me it's me, right? I mean, this is how stupid I am.

No, and they said, Ron Block.

And I thought, Ron Block, what? Right.

And of course.

genius decision i mean he is absolutely the man and yeah he's the man and and uh and i obviously wasn't the guy for that job anyway when that happened i thought that was it never again no more opportunity for that and lo and behold she asked me if i wanted a guitar job shortly after that now guitar wasn't my thing you know i was a banjo player as as saying i grew up wanting to only play the banjo and it just never never seemed to work out i did this she invited you to to play guitar it's I think for the same reason the Lonesome River Band wanted me to play mandolin.

There was a language.

And this is why I say I was trained for the Allison Cross job.

And in my mind, I was also thinking, I wonder if she's gonna be here, or I wonder if anybody in her band's gonna be here, because I'm getting just such a big fan.

And in walks Ron Block, who's been in Allison's band for many, many years now.

And I was equally excited to meet him.

I just loved the music so much that they made.

And so I like kind of walked up and my dad, oftentimes I remember being shy about it too, but he would be like, well, ask him if he'll play a tune with you.

And I hated to do that.

Even then I was kind of like, oh no, I know that he's like, he's Ron Block and I'm just this kid.

And I would always be a little bit shy, but my dad would kind of, you know, in that way he, cause he knew that I wanted that so bad.

And, uh, the, the whole band is Alison Krauss' band.

Barry Bales on bass, Ron Block on guitar and banjo, Rob Ickes on dobro, Alison Krauss on fiddle.

Victor Krauss plays acoustic bass on a couple of songs.

Um, Gary Smith on a bit of piano.

Mike Bubb on bass, John Gardner on percussion.

Andy Leftwich on fiddle, Ron Block on banjo, and Shaw Lane helping out with the vocals on Little Cabin Home on the Hill.

And they do a great version of the song, and this is the sort of stuff that I really like to play.

Rob Ikes and Trey Henley from the album Where the Sun Goes Down.

October 25th, I head to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books.

And then I'm going to be with our Ron Block in Cleveland and then on to Indiana.

There are a few more things in between, but it's a jam-packed tour.

It really spreads out kind of over September, October, and November.

Gosh, I had a lot, but I don't know.

I, I really love Nova County, Ron Block, but probably two of my biggest Scott Bestel.

I'm not sure if any of them went to Berkeley, but Victor Furtado, I really love what he does.

And he, he's a Berkeley grad and he really inspired me to start learning claw hammer banjo.