By Jason Roeder

The "Father of Bluegrass" may be Bill Monroe, but the father who most influenced fiddler Casey Driessen was his own.

	Casey Driessen and Steve Earle perform at the Minnesota. Zoo Amphitheater

Nice? Twenty-year-old Driessen, a third-year Music Production and Engineering major, has recorded for 12 CDs, not to mention having appeared on the Late Show with Craig Kilbourn and Black Entertainment Television. Driessen has gone from playing ditties with his father such as "Pop Goes the Weasel" (and the somewhat less celebrated "Boil Them Cabbage Down") to performing with contemporary bluegrass/folk artists such as Steve Earle and Judith Edelman. But just because Driessen has been performing since he was 13, doesn't mean he always envisioned a life on stage.

"Fiddling was just something that I was sort of doing," Driessen says. "As I was growing up, I never thought of what the future might hold as far as playing fiddle."

Casey's father Thomas had studied guitar at Berklee for a year and encouraged his son to consider attending. But the younger Driessen worried that an intensive music curriculum wouldn't offer the educational breadth he was seeking. Then, the summer before his senior year in high school, he met String Department Chair Matt Glaser at a fiddle camp near Nashville. That changed everything.

"Matt's one of the main reasons I'm here," Driessen says. "There are people who can play, and there are some who are better at teaching; Matt is able to do both. . . . He knows the bluegrass music. I just wanted to come and hang out with Matt."

Glaser's glad Driessen did. He says Driessen brings a number of talents to his instrument, especially an advanced sense of rhythm. "If you have Driessen in the band, you don't need a drummer," Glaser says. "He's so powerful."

Driessen takes center stage at the 1999 Berklee Commencement Concert

Even so, Driessen says jazz and other more malleable styles offer him "freedom to improvise and be creative, rather than being straight from the written page. I do that sometimes, but it's not my ideal situation." In fact, Driessen says it's exposure to other styles that makes his time at Berklee especially valuable, and he's not just talking curriculum.

"I feel like I've expanded my musical palette by coming here," Driessen says. "A taste of this and a taste of that. I like the fact that everybody's got such a different CD collection. . . . I listen to my roommate's CDs more than I listen to any of mine."

It may seem surprising that with his performance background—the gigs, the festivals, the television spots—Driessen has chosen to pursue a Music Production and Engineering major. But Driessen, who says he probably would have studied engineering had he attended a liberal arts college, says that training in the behind-the-scenes aspects of music is the perfect complement to the skills he already has.

"I've been performing since I was 13, and I continue to perform throughout school," Driessen says. "I figured that if I was going to come to a college and get a college degree, I may as well get something that could back me up somehow . . . so that I can expand my vocabulary as a musician in general."

Driessen doesn't know if bluegrass will ever penetrate the mainstream like swing, country, or Latin music. It's gaining popularity—Driessen sees the attendance increasing at festivals—but there's something about it that just isn't big-time.

"I see people who draw influence from the music, rather than the actual traditional bluegrass," Driessen says. "I don't know if I see bluegrass blooming commercially."

But if you ask Matt Glaser, that's not going to hold Driessen back.

"He's going to have no trouble finding work, that's for sure."