User:Rex McGee

Rex McGee Bio

His great-grandfather Will McGee learned to play fiddle left-handed on a fiddle his daddy made out of a gourd. His grandfather Ralph was a fiddler still fondly remembered by many around Stokes and Surry Counties in North Carolina. Rex's grandfather Easter also played the fiddle. He sometimes refers to the fiddle as a "family curse". His playing includes tunes from Appalachian, Bluegrass, New-England, Cape Breton, Quebecois, Irish, Scandinavian, Jazz and other traditions

Beginning on fiddle at age 4, and later 5-string banjo at age 12, Rex gave private lessons and played fiddler's conventions with future bluegrass greats Wayne Benson and Clay Jones before graduating high school in 1988. He got his private pilot's license, performed for contra dances on the East Coast with Moose Chowder and was a studio musician on numerous recordings before graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy in 1993.

He is on Grammy nominated recording session with Tony Williamson, mentored jazz fusion banjoist Ryan Cavanaugh and released a critically acclaimed CD 24 Creations for Solo Banjo in 2000. In his travels with Footloose, Larry Keel Experience, and John Cowan Band he shared the stage at festivals in the USA, Canada and Ireland with acoustic greats Vassar Clements, Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Pat Flynn, Bela Fleck, Stuart Duncan, Jeff Autry, Mike Marshall and Led Zeppelin rock star John Paul Jones.

He stopped extensive traveling in favor of pharmacist employment in 2005.

He lives on the old family farm near Sauratown Mountain in North Carolina with his expectant wife and 4 children. - February, 2012