I think it was Tom T. Hall who said every day in Nashville someone is all but ready to pack up and go home, then has a hit. For years they’d tried to find their voice and then all of a sudden folks got it.
That’s kinda how I feel about “The Mandolin Case.” After ten years it’s an overnight success. Of course John Grisham ain’t laying awake at night worried I’m gonna catch up with him, but the book is an artistic success and has made me many new bluegrass friends. That’s enough; everything else is gravy on the biscuits.
There were many reasons I wrote “The Mandolin Case.” I wanted there to be a place where the decent prevail over the greedy. I wanted Harvey County to be a “Bluegrass Lake Wobegone” where Docs played music with their patients and were still friends with them instead of treating ’em like some dadgum statistical aberration on a ICDM-9 code number graph. I wanted a place where music was to search for the truth and where lyrics came from the heart instead of some cold-hearted SOB in an office who calculates the demographic market impact of a hook line.
Call me idealistic if you want; I don’t care. Me and my Marfar are just two old people having fun who hope to lock in a spot in Heaven’s Bluegrass Band, and no one can stop us.
Y’all look us up at IBMA. We’ve got a table there in the exhibition hall. The last time I had a booth in the exhibit hall was when a 4th grade painting won a white ribbon at the Harvey County Fair, so I’m real proud. Y’all come visit.
Dr. B
Dr. Tom Bibey: Stories of the Bluegrass Music Road 