A career in music since youth

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Caleb Dennis, and I have played and sang Gospel music since I was 10 years old. I guess my love for music started when I went to my first concert. It was at a local church were the premier First Family of Bluegrass Gospel Music, The Sullivan Family, was to perform. I sat through the whole concert, and afterwards I went to meet them and purchased some of their recorded material.

I remember the first tape I bought was titled Live in Philidelphia. I began to play along with the tape, with a fiddle I had purchased about a year before at a local pawn shop. I learned many of the notes and styles from the tape. I guess about two years later, the Sullivan Family returned to my hometown, to a Church in Pensacola Florida. I penciled this date on my calendar, for I was not going to miss it!

Sometime during the concert a lady of the Church that knew me really well, told the group I was present and played fiddle. The next think I knew I was on stage with the Legendary Sullivan Family. That night after the show was over, the First Lady of Bluegrass Gospel Music, "Margie Sullivan" asked me to perform in Branson Missouri at Silver Dollar City theme park. Being a kid of only 11 years of age of course I was overjoyed!

For the next 5 years I toured over the United States with the Sullivan Family. During this time I met another guy my age, by the name of Alan Sibley, that sang and played the mandolin. He was hired in to the group one year later than I. In the next 4 years we traveled to many places with the group. We made tours to Branson MO, and Bill Monroe's homeplace festival in Rosine KY, performing with many bands such as Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Larry Sparks, Ricky Skaggs and many many others. We traveled over 200,000 miles per year with the Sullivan Family and toured in over 30 states.

Alan and I left the Sullivan's around 18 years old, and then went to work with Larry Wallace. Wallace is a 10 year veteran of "Jimmy Martin and The Sunny Mountain Boys." Now Alan and I sing on our own, full-time, touring and playing many Churches and Restaurants over the States. My advice to anyone aspiring a career in music is to go for it! It takes hard work and dedication, but it can be done!