Strumming Guitar in Italy

Gotta love the folks who try to spread the American ethic one little Italian town at a time. A story in the new
online travel magazine Stellar features
the story of a couple of wandering
American minstrels who ply the back roads of Italy playing a type of music that is a bit unfamiliar to the ears of
rural Italians. As the writer puts it: “Being a bluegrass or high lonesome country band in Italy was like being a
klezmer band in Mississippi.”

Jeff Biggers and Chris Rundel trundle along in their 1964 Volvo Amazon looking for bookings for their band, Mas
Tequila. Often playing for beer or wine, they find the locals at first resistant, or at least surprised, to hear their
brand of music, but before long, the group charms the cannolis off of them, eliciting “yee haws!” from audience members
who seem to warm to the beat and strum of these musical Americans.