We hope that you enjoy our first CD, Handing Down Tradition. There are a few things about it that I thought you might be interested in knowing. All but one of the pictures are taken from a house at the end of our road where I grew up. Mrs Pritchett, who lives there, was the lady who made our stage clothes when I played with The Hoyles. So, going back to that house was in essence part of that tradition. Her husband was a deacon in the church that I attended.

Also the photo in the middle of the sleeve was taken at one of the historical landmarks where we live now, an old mill known as Starr’s Mill. Mark’s grandfather (on his mother’s side) ran a mill when Mark was growing up. In that particular photo I am holding a mandolin and a Bible…the mandolin representing the bluegrass tradition and the Bible the faith that we are handing down. You’ll also see Blackjack, our newest dog in that photo and the name of the label we chose to use. Blackjack as you will recall was the title to one of JD Crowe’s banjo tunes, but it was also the name of Mark’s army unit while we were stationed in Germany.

Underneath the CD you’ll find a collage. Fifteen old cents representative of the tune Gimme Back my Fifteen Cents and the old tunes on the CD, an old bible turned to Revelation, representative of the tune John the Revelator and the gospel tunes, and also the fiddle case and bow was one that we bought while in the Czech Republic... we wanted to make sure that our European bluegrass times were not ommitted from this CD. The background photo surrounding this is taken from the cover of Mark’s old Bible as well.

Remember Otis, our pug dog? He was named after a person on The Andy Griffith Show. The Dillards were on that show playing bluegrass music as The Darlings…and their dad (in the show) Brisco Darling, was known to say…”dance till your socks are hot and ravelling” so that’s where that phrase came from.

The number to our CD….is BJ-258347277 which spells bluegrass when you press it on a phone….since we did this one ourselves we could have some fun!

Cindy's brother, Eddie who is the banjo player for The Hoyles, is with The Musselwhite Family on this CD, helping to hand down the tradition.