today. I turned around and it was a mandolin player from another band that was in the lineup for tonight's show. I've seen this guy around, but I had never heard him speak before and the way he was speaking really bugged me, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He was perfectly nice, but his accent was like sandpaper on my teeth.

Within the conversation, he started talking to us about how he went to this show to see a famous Scottish band play and the bagpipes wouldn't work because the humidity was too low. My mind turned to the West, and I immediately realized [ding! ding! ding!] that he has the soft-spoken, GA, Osmond voice and accent, so I asked where the show was, to which he replied, predictably, "Salt Lake City".

I didn't ask the usual question "Are you Mormon?" because he seems like a nice enough guy. I know my husband hates it when people ask him that and he also gets embarrassed when people give him a hard time over his accent. It's hard to imagine someone could talk like that and not be a Mormon though.

I did tell him that I lived in Utah for a few years and that my husband was from there. He kind of shut down-- I'm guessing that either he's not wanting to be exposed as a Mormon [it's not a good way to be known in the bluegrass crowd] or he's thinking I'm a Mormon [although if he has seen us around, he'd know that there's nothing about our band of bawdy broads that is compatible with the Mormon lifestyle].

I've got a gig next week that his band is also playing at-- I'm determined to get to the bottom of this!

That's so funny.