Country, bluegrass and Americana music in Kentucky have experienced a wave of momentum in recent years, lifting artists like Tyler Childers to national prominence while also knocking down barriers that once held local talent back from breaking out of its regional bubble. One of the steadfast local players behind the scenes helping to drive this resurgence has been songwriter, teacher and multi-instrumentalist Don Rogers. In recent years, Rogers has worked with everyone from The Local Honeys, Nicholas Jamerson and Eric Bolander to Cole Chaney, Charles Wesley Godwin and countless others. But his contributions to the Kentucky music lexicon date back much further.
Born in Clark County in 1970, Rogers came from a musical family, as many artists do, but the similarities end there. His grandfather, Charlie, and Charlie’s three brothers were all well-known pickers who played everything from old-time music to the popular hits of the day throughout Eastern Kentucky in the first half of the 20th century. However, most of them had died by the time Rogers was born, leaving a generational disconnect between the music and him that could only be bridged by stories passed down from his father.
“My dad could play a little bit of guitar, but for the most part there was really nobody to directly pass all that music on to my two brothers and me,” said Rogers. “His stories ended up fueling our imagination and passion for music.”
Rogers would go on to learn a few chords on the guitar, picking casually until a transformative experience connecting his family’s musical past to the present took place when he was 10 years old. One morning, fellow Kentuckian Gus Meade, a programmer/analyst for the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture, knocked on the door of Rogers’ home with exciting news. Meade had just unearthed a batch of test pressings taken from a 1930s recording session in Richmond, Indiana, that included four sides of music from Rogers’ family members recorded under the name Kentucky String Ticklers.
Listening to that recording was the first time Rogers got to hear the work of his distant family for himself, as opposed to stories passed down from his father. The experience further invigorated him to explore his past and carry that legacy into the future.
“I remember first hearing them and it being like listening to ancient, ancestral sounds,” Rogers said. “None of our family who was alive at the time knew these records existed, so to have them show up out of nowhere was a shock.”
After incorporating bluegrass banjo into his repertoire when he was 15, Rogers eventually worked his way back to guitar in his early 20s, after his younger brother Wes introduced him to the likes of the Grateful Dead; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and The Allman Brothers Band. This new world of musical influences led to him forge a bond with Wes’ friends Roddy and Todd Puckett, with whom he’d go on to form his first band in 1993, the jamgrass band Green Genes. By 1998, the group, which started as an acoustic trio, had transformed into a fully electric outfit with drums that took Lexington and Central Kentucky by storm with a lineup featuring Rogers, Roddy Puckett, Brett Litton, Todd Copeland, Brad Slutskin and Doug Weinberg.
“We were writing our own songs and mixing in a lot of covers,” says Rogers. “There was always cheap beer and big crowds, which led to more gigs that only pushed us to continue learning more and more.”
Rogers regularly performs at festivals and events across the commonwealth. Here, he’s pictured at the Irvine festival Kickin’ It On the Creek. Photo by Angela King Belleville
The band’s influence has permeated through the scene in the years since, evident in local bands such as The Wooks and Magnolia Boulevard, both of which shared at least one member with Green Genes. Rogers has stayed busy in the years since, with Kentucky Wild Horse, the New Kentucky String Ticklers, Honky Grass and his solo-backing band, the Apostlebillies, which just released the album “Junkman” in July. Rogers’ work with Green Genes and elsewhere has also helped to invigorate the generation after them to carry on the legacy and pursue music just as Rogers did after hearing his family stories growing up.
Linda Jean Stokley, a longtime pupil of Rogers, is a founding member of the trailblazing old-time group The Local Honeys. She and Rogers first met during a square dance years ago — though they both debate which square dance it was. The two have gone on to form a tight bond that has resulted in the Honeys covering several of Rogers’ songs, such as “First Church Of God” and “Junkman,” and bringing him into the fold as a touring member of the band.
“Don has a deep-seated root of knowledge and love for traditional Kentucky music as well as southern rock and other electric music,” Stokley said. “We’ve basically been a Don Rogers cover band for like 10 years, so it only seemed fitting to ask him to join the Honeys when we moved toward being a more electric band.”
Another artist championing Rogers has been Nicholas Jamerson. The Sundy Best co-founder recently co-wrote the title track to his latest solo album, “Peace Mountain,” with Rogers and had him record fiddle, mandolin and other instrumental parts for the project. Jamerson also invited Rogers to his inaugural Sleeping In The Woods Songwriter Festival this past May in Monticello, where Rogers performed in a songwriter round and later got to join Jamerson and his backing band The Morning Jays on stage for several songs.
“[Don] has such humility and a plethora of knowledge that only comes with a lot of time spent on your craft,” Jamerson said. “He has such a calming presence that is reflected in the easygoing nature of his music and is also just an incredible player, whether it be flatpicking, playing old-time fiddle or something else. He’s like a Swiss Army Knife musician — he can do a little bit of everything.”
While Rogers continues to be humbled by the colleagues who want to work with and play his songs, he says that most of his work is written with a focus on his own life experiences and traditional Kentucky music in mind. Focusing on that has helped him to remain grounded and living in the moment rather than writing from a place without first-hand knowledge. That sense of person and place is ultimately what has made Rogers the champion of Kentucky and Appalachian music that he is, and it’s why folks are lining up to work with him.
“Music has taught me how to really engage and focus on the process by letting go of the outcome,” Rogers said. “When it comes to writing, I’ve learned that if you sit and pay attention to your thoughts, they begin happening to you rather than you producing them. You can’t just force words out; they have to come to you. It’s a meditative process of learning and developing that has spilled over into a lot of other aspects of my life as well.”
Rogers, who comes from a long line of traditional bluegrass music players, incorporates traditional Appalachian music into his playing style, but also more contemporary genres, such as jamgrass and Americana. Photo by Mick Jeffries