Bluegrass music may originate in the Appalachian Mountains, but it has made a home on Long Island for the past 50 years, despite its rural beginnings, thanks to Buddy Merriam.
During the 45 years Merriam has led his band Back Roads, he’s left a significant mark on the local music scene with this energetic Americana genre through numerous gigs and events like theLong Island Bluegrass Roots & Music Festival, an annual event held at Tanner Park in Copiague that celebrated its 23rd anniversary last year. Merriam and Back Roads have been regular headliners, and for the festival’s first 15 years, he also served as its artistic director. But when Merriam and Back Roads take the stage at the People’s Pub on May 2, it will be one of the last major shows the septuagenarian instrumentalist will perform with his longest-running group. For Merriam, it’s time to slow down and shift gears.
“I’ve had a professional bluegrass band on Long Island for 45 years, and honestly, I’ve really been getting into writing mandolin music,” Merriam explained in an interview withGSBN. “I’ve probably composed 1,200 mandolin pieces, and I want to get as many documented as I can so that what I’ve done with my life will live on. I’ve become involved with the nonprofitMandolin Heritage Association, and one of their first projects was transcribing 200 of my mandolin compositions. That’s really important to me as I start getting older.”
While recording his canon in notation will be part of Merriam’s post-Back Roads life, he’s not planning to hang up his Gibson F5 mandolin anytime soon. Instead, he’s moving on to his latest project, theLong Island Mandolin Quintet. With Merriam on first mandolin, the five-piece is completed by Adam Becherer (second mandolin), Matt Gelfer (mandola), Bill Slovin (mandocello), and Sam Gelfer (mandolin bass). But first, he will close the chapter on Back Roads with this People’s Pub gig, which will feature two sets—one from the present and one from the past.
“It’s going to be kind of an extravaganza,” Merriam said. “I’ll be doing a set with my regular guys and gal, and then we’ll transition to a bigger set with my former members. I’m really proud of just about everybody who’s passed through my band. Some of these people learned a lot working with me and were able to build careers in bluegrass music. People mentored me, and I tried to pass that on to others. The second set at this show at the People’s Pub will feature all the people who have been members of the band at one time or another over the past 45 years.”
Merriam’s musical journey started when he was 14, as a sports-loving kid fiddling on an acoustic guitar. The discovery of girls motivated him to get an electric guitar and join a band at 16. With musical tastes leaning toward the Grateful Dead, Merriam became interested in Jerry Garcia and David Grisman’s side project,Old & In the Way.
“When I heard Garcia talking about bluegrass, I was aware of it,” Merriam recalled. “But when I heard Old & In the Way, I knew I had to learn how to do that.”
But for the casual Deadhead, the real musical turning point happened when he, his then-girlfriend, and dog piled into his Volkswagen Microbus to attend the first Berkshire Mountains Bluegrass Festival in 1976, headlined by the Godfather of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe. It was a life-changing moment for Merriam, both musically and because of the natural disaster he experienced as a Long Islander.
“I’d been to a few rock festivals, but I’d never attended a bluegrass festival,” he said. “When I saw Bill Monroe for the very first time, he was probably in his fifties, and his backup guys were all in their twenties and thirties. He just drove everything with the mandolin. I’d never seen anything as powerful as that in my life. I knew I wanted to be part of this. Then, that evening, I was struck by lightning and woke up in the hospital, unable to hear a sound.”
Merriam eventually recovered and caught up with Monroe the following year as Monroe was passing through. The unlikely duo struck up a friendship with the older musician, who mentored Merriam until the bluegrass legend passed away in 1996 at age 84. It was an experience that continues to reverberate with Merriam to this day.
Source: Fire Island News & Great South Bay News
