Customer Reviews

I Hear a Voice Calling: A Bluegrass Memoir

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Gene Lowinger is a fine writer and he has a lot to tell about. This is a great book if you listen to bluegrass music and revere the bluegrass pioneers. Lowinger has great anecdotes about Bill Monroe and life in the band. But it's an absorbing book even if you don't care about bluegrass. Lowinger's life has had twists and turns, ups and downs, and with his modest, wry, thoughtful narrative, I started each of the chapters eagerly. The book has other virtues. I'm not a musician and I don't listen to Classical music, but Lowinger's comparison of bluegrass and Classical music, from ther perspective of a performing musician, is extremely interesting. Photographers may well be interested in Lowinger's strategies and techniques as he photographs Bill Monroe and others. Especially with all the photographs, the text is brief. I'd have liked it longer.

The first time I saw Monroe(1965 at the Ash Grove)Gene was the fiddler.I was a kid didn't know much,but enjoyed the show.All the Blue Grass Boys were kids at that time,I think Peter Rowan was about three or four years senior to me.Later on ,through live tapes of Monroe's shows I heard a good deal of Gene's fiddling.
Working for Monroe was a tough job,as a few people who have tried told me so.I think Bobby Black's book "Come Hither To Go Yonder" gave a more in depth description of the experience.We all wanted to be a Blue Grass Boy and these books are a wonderful insight for us.
If you have any interest in the dynamics of being a Blue Grass Boy,and not from the southern culture,this book has insight in spades.Jewish cowboy indeed!
I'd like to read any memoir of a Blue Grass Boy,Peter Rowan are you going to do one?
So,of course the book is well written,affordable and one more account of a city kid working for the master of Blue Grass.Buy it and enjoy.