![]() He was from a musical family and learned old-time banjo from his father from the South Ohio/North Kentucky hills. He picked it up and I heard Bluegrass music for the first time. When we went inside to eat lunch, I asked him about a banjo I saw in the corner. “One day though, in my early teens, I went to help a neighbor build a chicken-coop on his property. Whether it was being played on an instrument, or on a recording, it was Blues. Out there, there was only one kind of music in the house. ![]() It was panther, gator, and cottonmouth country. It was 7 miles either direction to the nearest paved road, and when you got to pavement, you still weren’t near a town. I grew up in rural Florida, on a 14-mile-long dirt road, near the headwaters of the Everglades. “When my father was growing up in Mississippi,” states Ben, “ they never had running water and the only electricity was one light bulb that hung from the ceiling, but they had it better than some of their neighbors, because they didn’t have dirt floors. On the other side of the family tree, his grandfather, who was a Mississippi sharecropper turned Ben onto the sounds and culture of Mississippi and Blues in general. Her daughter was a Boogie-Woogie pianist and painter who used to play for Ben when he was coming up. Ben’s great-grandmother was a Vaudeville musican who toured with Al Jolson and also participated in medicine shows. Opening for such acts as “Third Eye Blind”, “Jim Belushi and The Blues Brothers Band”, “Elvin Bishop”, “Canned Heat”, “Grinderswitch”, “The Del Vikings”, “The Fabulous Thunderbirds” Taj Mahal, Koko Taylor, Noble “Thin Man” Watts, Kenny Neal, James Peterson and Lester Chambersīen Prestage Ben Prestage’s musical background began before he was born… even before his parents were born. ![]() In 2015 the band reunited and is now in the process of creating a much anticipated fifth album release in 2017. Although they have shared bandstands since the late 1970’s, It wasn’t until 1988 that they began to explore their common roots and their love of the Blues. Top is from New Smyrna Beach and Packrat is from Lake Helen Florida. The lowdown guitar sound of Guitarist Robert Thomas who is equally impressive, can spit out fiery solos and muscular riffs reworking the deep, swampy groove of New Orleans and Delta blues, that make you think of the pine flatwoods and cypress bottoms of Central Florida. Smokehouse Thompson is a raw, greasy harmonica player, evoking the swamp sounds of Baton Rouge that has spread and taken root in the steamy Florida lowlands. ![]()
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