I still enjoy cranking the radio up and listening to some of the better songs of that decade, and interestingly enough my 15-year-old son enjoys some of the same songs. I think that may be because there isn’t any good rock to be heard any more. Over the past three decades, however, my musical interests have fluctuated quite a bit.

I was never into disco music and I never had much use for hip-hop.

For a while there I was heavy into country western music something I attribute to my Mom and Dad taking me to the Grand Ole Opry when it was still held in Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville as well as my wife who is a big country music fan. Over the years, I’ve also taking a likening to the Blues, Bluegrass and even some gospel.

The bluegrass comes from the release of “O Brother Where Art Thou” back in 2000. I don’t know why, but I’ve really come to love bluegrass over the ensuring years, and especially the sounds of The Del McCoury band. 

Del McCoury, a North Carolina native, has won 31 International Bluegrass Music Association awards and has been named that organization’s Entertainer of the Year nine times. In 2006, Del McCoury won his first Grammy for his album, The Company We Keep.”

Back in the early 1960, McCoury sang vocals and played rhythm guitar for Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, but the 69-year-old artist has been in the business for much longer.

That’s why it was a little hard for me to understand why he took time for a stop at the Bluebird in Bloomington on Saturday night. I decided to go to that show, and it was my first visit to the Bluebird. It’s a nice place to see a live act, but small.

There couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred people there to see Del, his two sons, Ronnie and Rob, and the other members of the band play. But it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how Del keeps going, but he was fired up and smiling throughout the whole show. The energy was just what I expected of the man who sings “Never Growing Up Boy.”

McCoury’s definitely a man who loves what he’s doing. He was constantly smiling and seemed very happy to be up on that stage playing and singing.

He reminds me of Dale Earnhardt who believed you needed to be doing what you loved when you get out of bed every morning or you needed to be looking for another job.

 McCoury told the audience he was back at the Bluebird for one simple reason.

“We don’t want you to forget us,” McCoury said.

I don’t think we could forget you if we tried.

Del plans a return trip to Southern Indiana later this year. He’ll be at the Little Nashville Opry on Nov. 29. I plan on being there and I plan on dragging along my son this time.