Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Byron Berline: Tobacco Stops With Me

Byron Berline is my name.

I live in Guthrie, Oklahoma and uh I own and operate

the Double Stop Fiddle Shop and Music Hall.

Probably got close to 250 violins down here and

and several mandolins and guitars and banjos.

I keep these all tuned up.

A lot of beginners come in that are looking to get

into an instrument and that could be five years old

on up to eighty years old.

John Hickman does our repair and has been

doing it ever since.

We've never been out without anything to work on.

I mean since the day we opened he's always had

something to work on.

Of course I grew up in a musical family.

My my father was an old-time fiddler

and my mother was a piano player and

I had two brothers, two sisters that played music.

I was invited to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965

and that's where I met Bill Monroe,

who is the father of bluegrass music and then after that

I went to Los Angeles and ended up playing with a

a member of the Byrds, Gene Clark and one of

the Dillards, Doug Dillard.

I got to record and be around a lot of great

uh musicians and singers.

People like uh Rod Stewart, uh Elton John, Bob Dylon,

the Rolling Stones, I recorded with them.

Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles.

So I was lucky to be in the right spot at the

right time I guess, you know?

Almost every member of my band at one time smoked

and none of them smoke now.

I usually don't play any places anymore that

that that do smoke.

What happens you know in the smoking venues,

the employees there are just trapped,

they're trapped in the smoke

and they can't get away from it.

I know a lot of people that have died from lung cancer

that never smoked, but they were around smoke.

So it's just very important.

It really is.

I mean uh not only for your health, but just

it's just uncomfortable when you're up there

trying to perform.

You know most places I like to play are theatres

or concerts where people sit and listen

and you know now most of these places that are bars

that are where people are smoking, I'm through with

all that kind of stuff.

I've done that.

Been there and done that.

I don't want to do that anymore.

But thank goodness most of the places I play in now

are smokefree, which is really good.

Well I think Oklahoma Law will eventually catch up.

Someday they'll change the law and fix it where it

it will be smokefree.

Smokers uh have a right to smoke,

but non-smokers, we want to have a right to breathe also.

I can understand both sides in a way,

but I mean uh I think most smokers realize that now.

It's not good for anybody, you know, we all know that

for a fact that smoking is not good for you, so why do it?

[playing violin]

I'm Byron Berline and Tobacco Stops With Me.

Captions by CaptioningEdge