When talking about Rudy Rudesill, who plays The Bungalow Inn in Lakeland this Tuesday from 5-7 p.m., it is hard to find a more varied list of bands and styles that are near and dear to a performer. Despite this resume, he still is much more humble than many musicians, not into self-promotion and definitely not a diva. “I guess this is the part where I tell you a little about myself,” he wrote to start off his home page. “I am a guitar player-singer songwriter born and raised in the country between Baldwin, WI and River Falls, WI. In 2006 my wife Nancy and I relocated to Woodbury, MN where we lived for seven years before I moved back to my hometown of Baldwin which is where I still reside.”
His influences in music have varied greatly throughout the years: Growing up listening to Gospel and old classic country, to today, taking in all kinds of singer-songwriters, bluegrass, blues, country, rock or whatever strikes him. Along the way, favorites have been southern rockers like The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Add in songwriters like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Prine and Guy Clark, to name a few. And of course many older rock and rollers like The Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and probably his all-time favorite, The Grateful Dead. You can see all kinds of this on Tuesday, although its hard to fit them all in.
“I got my first guitar as a teenager and have always enjoyed playing and singing. I learned how to sing in a country church where my family was very involved … This is where I learned to harmonize and loved the sound … with another person or in a choir,” Rudy Rudesill wrote.