I listen to Bluegrass music over the Internet on a daily basis, usually while at work, for up to 8 hours each day. I never heard Bluegrass music before stumbling across it on the Internet.

My local FM radio market is dominated by ClearChannel, like so many others around the nation, and they obviously don’t have Bluegrass stations. Because of Internet radio, I have started collecting CD’s of Bluegrass musicians that I never would have known about otherwise. I recently purchased the Grascals’ latest CD, and also Blue Highway. I also seek out Bluegrass concerts now, usually involving musicians whose music I know from Internet radio. Furthermore, I actually bought a banjo last week. It’s safe to say that I’ve become a hardcore Bluegrass fan, and I owe it all to Internet radio.

Ryan Pry
Radford, VA

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I was a full time country music broadcaster for over 35 years, and fortunately worked for owners who liked and wanted to broadcast Bluegrass and old time country music to their listeners. Then I left the station due to family circumstances.Country music was also changing and the stations stopped playing the legends, and their fans had nowhere to go to hear them or their music. I begged and begged stations to let me do a Bluegrass and ole time country show, and sometimes I won. I found a few low power stations out in the country that would air my program. I even had to buy time on some to get them to take the program.

[Stations today] only play a select market or genre of music. Anything that doesn’t make them loads of money they do not play. Where are the people going to find music like Bluegrass, Ole Timey and acoustic music? Then along came the Internet and now people who have starved for this genre of music around the world can still listen, not only for their pure enjoyment but also to keep the music alive and the performers and artists out in the public.

Festivals need people to come, and we provide them an avenue to get the word out. Those record labels who want those same people who want those artists to sell their recordings reach millions who will buy them. Now why would anyone want to destroy that?

Now I don’t have to beg or borrow to have a place to bring this wonderful music to the listeners, who now only have to turn their computers on.

Billy Dunbar
Des Moines, IA

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