"I'm the odd man out," says Rob Ickes of the band, Blue Highway, coming to Long's Park on Sunday and being sponsored by the Lancaster New Era. "Everyone else is from the Appalachian region, but I grew up in Northern California."
So what did a Northern California boy find so appealing about bluegrass music?
"Bluegrass cuts right to the heart of the songs," says Ickes, who plays dobro (also known as the resonator guitar). "When you get rid of the drums, the electric guitar, the bass, you can really hear the vocals. The basics can be more powerful."
There's nothing more basic than bluegrass music and nobody does it better than Blue Highway, which also features Tim Stafford on guitar and vocals; Jason Burleson on banjo; Shawn Lane on mandolin, fiddle and vocals, and Wayne Taylor on bass and vocals.
In reviewing their latest album, "Through the Window of a Train," Matt Blackett of Guitar Player magazine wrote:
"(The album) is packed with killer flatpicking, amazing resonator work, and the kind of head-spinning call-and-response instrumental sparring that makes bluegrass so damn exciting."
"We've been together for
15 years and we're the same five guys we started with, which is pretty unusual," says Ickes, who moved to Nashville back in 1992 and has worked with everyone from Merle Haggard to Willie Nelson to Dolly Parton.
What sets Blue Highway apart from a lot of other terrific bluegrass bands is their songwriting.
Every song on the new album was written by a member of the band.
"Tim and Wayne and Shawn do most of the writing," says Ickes. "Songwriting became a much bigger part as the band grew and evolved."
Playing new songs gives the band a more contemporary sound, though Ickes is quick to point out that they mix it up with traditional songs as well.
"The vocal harmonies are a little more contemporary sounding, a little smoother," Ickes says, adding that bluegrass music isn't as isolated as it was in its earlier days. "People have grown up with the Beatles or Merle Haggard, so we can draw on that, we draw from others."
Ickes says he listens to jazz more than bluegrass these days.
The band plays a lot of bluegrass festivals and is usually on the road 150 days out of the year.
"I love shows like Long's Park, where we can turn on new people who never listened to bluegrass music before," says Ickes, who actually heard a lot of bluegrass growing up.
"When I moved to Nashville there was just so much music and this friend of mine said some people are born in the wrong place," Ickes says. "But where I grew up, south of San Francisco, there was a great bluegrass scene."
He remembers loving the Seldom Scene, a highly influential band from the early 1970s that played progressive bluegrass.
"Mike Auldridge, who played dobro with them, was a big inspiration," Ickes says.
So was his own family.
"My family played a lot of music," he says. "My grandfather was a fiddle player and my brother played banjo. My grandma said, once you start playing bluegrass, you get bitten by the bug."
Ickes says he was probably the only kid in his high school who played bluegrass, but it didn't bother him.
"I'd put pressure on people to listen to it," he says.
So what's the appeal?
Ickes has always liked the idea that bluegrass is about the music, not the flash.
"There's not a lot of b.s. It's not really showy. You play and you sing. That's all people care about. You don't have to be beautiful or have a certain look," Ickes says, adding with a laugh, "though our band is very beautiful."
Long's Park Summer Music SeriesBlue HighwaySun. 7:30 p.m. FreeLong's Park Amphitheater1441 Harrisburg Pike, 735-8883On the Web at www.longspark.orgStaff writer Jane Holahan can be reached at jholahan@LNPnews.com or 481-6016. 
