Musical ministry
They share a love of bluegrass and Bible.
Some have played professionally in a local band for years, while others are amateurs who have returned to their instruments after a long hiatus.
Together, they volunteer their time several times a month to entertain at area nursing homes.
One might call it a revival of sorts, especially for Michael Ryan, a Madison family physician, who recently resurrected his banjo-playing skills and started where he left off 30 years ago.
He recalled his early days on the banjo.
“From 1974 to 1978, a group of us played music down at the 307, a bar where West Street Ministries is now,” said Ryan, who plays five-string banjo.
“Those who remember me from back then know I was a kind of wild and crazy guy,” he added with a chuckle.
“We all got saved and are reading the Bible now,” Ryan said, grinning.
Three members of his group eventually went on to become ministers, he said.
Ryan began playing banjo in 1967 at the age of 24. For him, the return to bluegrass represents a renewed hobby — and new motivation to improve his skills.
When he moved his medical practice to Florida, he quit playing, only picking up the hobby last year — five years after returning to Madison.
“I basically had to relearn the banjo,” he said.
Once again, he’s taking lessons from his old banjo teacher from the ’60s, retired missionary minister Bobby Jewel. The two were reunited Friday for the first time since 1969 when Ryan traveled to Jewel’s home in Indianapolis for his first banjo lesson in nearly 40 years.
“My challenge is to learn more complicated stuff,” Ryan said. “It’s a continuous learning process.”
Ryan plays with a group of doctors and also with a small group who entertain at Cora’s Country Store in Rexville, in Ripley County between Madison and Versailles.
“On Saturdays, we gather from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. around an old potbelly stove inside a vintage, circa 1900, farmhouse,” he said.
“It’s a perfect venue for bluegrass — like a mountain music place.”
Audience favorites, he said, are “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” from the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Rocky Top,” “Orange Blossom Special” and “Boil ’em Cabbage Down.”
But his biggest venue is at three local nursing homes where he joins the Burress Band to entertain up to 500 people each month.
Every other Friday, he joins the Burress Band at The Waters at Clifty Falls, where they play a repertoire of mostly hymns.
Most requested is “Old Rugged Cross,” Ryan said.
With Don Burress on the fiddle, Harry Fields on a bass guitar, L.C. Martin on guitar, Butch Mack on fiddle, Bob Burress on mandolin, Cleda Burress and Joyce Martin as vocalists and Ryan on the banjo, the group plays country and Christian music to eager listeners.
Like Samantha Youngblood, 81.
“I love to listen to the band’s country music and Christian songs — almost as much as bingo,” she said with a smile.
Band members Cleda Burress and Don Burress, who were high school sweethearts, entertain with a revived spirit of their own — reunited after decades and married only two years ago.
“Don took me to the senior prom, and I never got over him,” she said.
Every Tuesday the group is joined in front of a sizable audience at Hanover Nursing Center by vocalists Wilbur and Mary Lou Ginn, and Richard Ginn on the Dobro, a type of guitar that is played flat. They also play at Thornton Terrace the first Monday of every month.
Most of the band members are retired.
All volunteer their time and talents to bring smiles to the faces of the nursing home residents.
Faces like Jim Ritchie, 69, who has lived at The Waters for 2 1/2 years, no longer able to walk.
“I used to go to school with Don Burress,” he said. “And I worked with Bob. I can’t wait for the band to come and play. They’re really good.”
With the smile he is known for, Bob Burress said that playing music at the nursing homes gives the residents something to look forward to.
“And we have a lot of fun doing it.”