There was only oneprize-winning teenager carrying stones big enough to say thanks, but no thanksto Roy Acuff. Only one son of Kentucky finding a light of inspiration from BillMonroe and his Blue Grass Boys andcatching a fire from Bob Marley and The Wailers. Only one progressive hippieallying with like-minded conspirators, rolling out the New Grass revolution,and then leaving the genre's torch-bearing band behind as it reached itscommercial peak. There is only oneconsensus pick of peers and predecessors, of the traditionalists, the rebels,and the next gen devotees. Music's ultimate inside outsider. Or is it outsideinsider? There is only one Sam Bush. On a Bowling Green,Kentucky cattle farm in the post-war 1950s, Bush grew up an only son, and withfour sisters. His love of music came immediately, encouraged by his parents'record collection and, particularly, by his father Charlie, a fiddler, whoorganized local jams. Charlie envisioned his son someday a staff fiddler at theGrand Ole Opry, but a clear day's signal from Nashville brought to Bush'stelevision screen a tow-headed boy named Ricky Skaggs playing mandolin withFlatt and Scruggs, and an epiphany for Bush. At 11, he purchased his firstmandolin. As a teen fiddlerBush was a three-time national champion in the junior division of the NationalOldtime Fiddler's Contest. He recorded an instrumental album, Poor Richard's Almanac as a high schoolsenior and in the spring of 1970 attended the Fiddlers Convention in UnionGrove, NC. There he heard the New Deal String Band, taking notice of theirrock-inspired brand of progressive bluegrass. Acuff offered him aspot in his band. Bush politely turned down the country titan. It was not themusic he wanted to play. He admired the grace of Flatt & Scruggs, lovedBill Monroe- even saw him perform at the Ryman- but he'd discovered electrifiedalternatives to tradition in the Osborne Brothers and manifest destiny in TheDillards. See the photo of afresh-faced Sam Bush in his shiny blue high school graduation gown, circa 1970.Tufts of blonde hair breaking free of the borders of his squared cap, Bush issmiling, flanked by his proud parents. The next day he was gone, bound for LosAngeles. He got as far as his nerve would take him- Las Vegas- then doubled backto Bowling Green. "I startedworking at the Holiday Inn as a busboy," Bush recalls. "Ebo Walkerand Lonnie Peerce came in one night asking if I wanted to come to Louisvilleand play five nights a week with the Bluegrass Alliance. That was a big, ol''Hell yes, let's go.'" Bush played guitar inthe group, then began playing after recruiting guitarist Tony Rice to the fold.Following a fallout with Peerce in 1971, Bush and his Alliance mates- Walker,Courtney Johnson, and Curtis Burch- formed the New Grass Revival, issuing theband's debut, New Grass Revival.Walker left soon after, replaced temporarily by Butch Robins, with the quartetsolidifying around the arrival of bassist John Cowan. "There werealready people that had deviated from Bill Monroe's style of bluegrass,"Bush explains. "If anything, we were reviving a newgrass style that hadalready been started. Our kind of music tended to come from the idea of longjams and rock-&-roll songs." Shunned by sometraditionalists, New Grass Revival played bluegrass fests slotted in late-nightsets for the "long-hairs and hippies." Quickly becoming a favorite ofrock audiences, they garnered the attention of Leon Russell, one of the era'smost popular artists. Russell hired New Grass as his supporting act on a massivetour in 1973 that put the band nightly in front of tens of thousands. At tour's end, it wasback to headlining six nights a week at an Indiana pizza joint. But, they wereresilient, grinding it out on the road. And in 1975 the Revival first playedTelluride, Colorado, forming a connection with the region and its fans that hasprospered for 45 years. Bush was the newgrasscommando, incorporating a variety of genres into the repertoire. He discovereda sibling similarity with the reggae rhythms of Marley and The Wailers, and,accordingly, developed an ear-turning original style of mandolin playing. Thegroup issued five albums in their first seven years, and in 1979 becameRussell's backing band. By 1981, Johnson and Burch left the group, replaced bybanjoist Bela Fleck and guitarist Pat Flynn. A three-recordcontract with Capitol Records and a conscious turn to the country market tookthe Revival to new commercial heights. Bush survived a life-threatening boutwith cancer, and returned to the group that'd become more popular than ever.They released chart-climbing singles, made videos, earned Grammy nominations,and, at their zenith, called it quits. "We were on theverge of getting bigger," recalls Bush. "Or maybe we'd gone as far aswe could. I'd spent 18 years in a four-piece partnership. I needed a break.But, I appreciated the 18 years we had." Bush worked the nextfive years with Emmylou Harris' Nash Ramblers, then a stint with Lyle Lovett.He took home three-straight IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year awards, 1990-92,(and a fourth in 2007). In 1995 he reunited with Fleck, now a burgeoningsuperstar, and toured with the Flecktones, reigniting his penchant forimprovisation. Then, finally, after a quarter-century of making music with NewGrass Revival and collaborating with other bands, Sam Bush went solo. He's released sevenalbums and a live DVD over the past two decades. In 2009, the Americana MusicAssociation awarded Bush the Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist.Punch Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Greensky Bluegrass are just a fewpresent-day bluegrass vanguards among so many musicians he's influenced. Hisperformances are annual highlights of the festival circuit, with Bush's joyousperennial appearances at the town's famed bluegrass fest earning him the title,"King of Telluride." "With this bandI have now I am free to try anything. Looking back at the last 50 years ofplaying newgrass, with the elements of jazz improvisation and rock-&-roll,jamming, playing with New Grass Revival, Leon, and Emmylou; it's a culminationof all of that," says Bush. "I can unapologetically stand onstage andfeel I'm representing those songs well."