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MESOPOTAMIA -- Retirement in 2020 brought a new rhythm to the lives of Mesopotamia couple Don and Peggy Covey as they built community over the sounds of fiddles, banjos and improved harmonies, played alongside fellow bluegrass musicians.
"The closer we got to retirement, the more we started focusing on playing music that when we were young because of course when you're working and so forth, you don't have a lot of time to do that," Don Covey said. "We have some of the best memories meeting good people and reconnecting each year at these festivals."
After venturing to a few bluegrass festivals around the Mahoning Valley area, the couple developed a "natural curiosity."
From childhood, the couple, both 68, were influenced by a family who roamed the hills and hollers and ignited their passion in the old-timey mountain music.
"My father grew up in the south, down in Lee County, Virginia. He grew up with it himself and later on, I was born then they raised me in Ohio but brought that culture up here with them," Don Covey said.
For most of his life, Don said he's known his way around a guitar.
Rooted in her Appalachian heritage, Peggy Covey grew a natural love of the high-energy, traditional folk tunes and is well-versed in playing piano.
Before retiring, Don Covey worked at Mercury Plastics LLC in Middlefield. Peggy Covey had been working in daycare before starting off their venture into playing the bluegrass festival circuit.
The couple said you won't catch them on the main stage, but instead, they've found solace in jam sessions, strumming guitar licks over campfires with other musically inclined spectators that are regulars at bluegrass festivals.
"We have a really good time, sometimes it'll go till around 2 or 3 in the morning, everybody has a sense of camaraderie, we can relate to each other over a campfire just making friends and having a really good time doing it," Don Covey said.
Peggy said the jam sessions don't require you to be a musical expert. They admit they had to adjust to picking up new instruments - for Peggy, the fiddle, and Don, the mandolin - but they said, "we've been able to adapt easier because of our music backgrounds."
"When you're in these groups it doesn't matter where your skill level is because they adopt you if you are just starting out," Peggy Covey said. "They'll let you do a song and follow you and you learn from that experience because you see what they do and begin to know what you can add to the song."
As Don Covey put it, "That's where it gets fun," in reference to the improvisational aspect of the circles that he says usually begins with a familiar song, "and then from there you play and people join in and freestyle, some chant."
Some common songs you may overhear as a passerby may be "Take Your Shoes Off, Moses," specifically, the Stanley Brothers version. "By the Mark" by William Welch is another song the couple favors. "There's timings and melodies in that one that everyone enjoys and gets going to."
Always near them is their feline friend, a gray cat named Argent, the French word for silver. Peggy said the cat enjoys the soulful tunes so much that, "if we don't get her out of the pet carrier she gets mad not being part of the group."
The festive feline has become a charming addition to the couple's travels to different bluegrass events.
Their first stop, when the season comes, is Mitch and Cindy's Bluegrass Jamboree hosted at the Trumbull County Fairgrounds in Bazetta around Memorial Day.
Over their travels they've met some of their favorite artists, such as the Price Sisters, Leanna Price and Lauren Price Napier, along with country singer-songwriter Rhonda Vincent.
"Oftentimes after shows the professionals will come down, mingle, and a lot of times they do meet and greets," Don Covey said.
To suggest someone for a Saturday profile, email Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com.