I’ve always liked traditional music. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the north side of the Ohio River. A lush, humid valley in the American heartland. Named for a Roman dictator, a trivium as interesting as it is irrelevant to this narrative, the city has long been a gateway to the American South and is the self-proclaimed capital of Northern Kentucky. My neighborhood was filled with displaced families from the Appalachian diaspora, sprawling, brawling clans that cussed with twangs like rubber bands. The rueful observation went that Cincinnati had been saddled with the hillbillies too poor to make it all the way up to Detroit. But there was a lot of country music on the radio, on TV and in the air. Programs like WLW Barndance, and WLW-TV Midwestern Hayride featured legendary figures in folk, old-timey music, bluegrass and country.

My Dad played a Sears Silvertone acoustic guitar, and I have early memories of him strumming folk tunes like Jesse James, John Henry, Cross-eyed Sue and the Boll Weevil song. I’ve still got that guitar. The neck is a little warped (no truss rod) but the high action makes it perfect for bottleneck slide.

In my teens I learned to play electric guitar and the Pistols, Clash and Ramones. But I always felt the pull of the older stuff. I started playing a little rockabilly. Then honky-tonk. Got a mandolin and tried to play bluegrass, then old-timey. A bit like a salmon swimming back upstream to The Source.

I followed the big-house hilljacks up to Detroit – like them, seeking employment. A few years ago I met an Irish fiddler in the area who agreed to take me on as her student, the first formal musical instruction in my life. Trying to learn this subtle music as an adult is probably a fool’s errand but it’s a lot of fun.

I’ve recently started playing in the open session at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Club in Detroit.