CHRISTIANSBURG -- Three years ago, musicians Scott Patrick and Abe Goorskey started playing together and learning each other's style of music.
Patrick, a guitarist, and Goorskey, a guitarist and mandolin player, both play bluegrass differently.
"We started playing and had a good connection from the start," Goorskey said. "I saw it as an opportunity to learn from him because he's more of a straight-ahead bluegrass player and I was playing in more of a progressive bluegrass band at the time."
The duo met about five years ago at the Floyd Country Store's weekly music jamborees. Patrick's grandfather Shelby Vest gave Goorskey's mother, Debra Gallagher, fiddle lessons.
"Our families knew each other from jamboree, and we always wanted to pick together," Goorskey said.
So the pair started playing music together on nights and weekends after work. Goorskey works at Phoenix Hardwoods in Floyd, and Patrick is an engineer at Luna Innovations in Blacksburg.
The two started arranging songs, playing shows together locally and writing pieces.
That led to the recording of a CD called "Back When I Had You," which is scheduled to be available April 10 on Blueview Records, Patrick's Riner-based recording studio.
Patrick started Blueview Records out of his basement in 2005 with the intention of giving local artists more exposure.
He said he worked on nights and weekends when he wasn't playing music, teaching himself how to record and writing songs.
"I worked for a couple of years until I felt like I had something strong enough to present," Patrick said. "Then I thought, Abe has always been there. He does more instrumental and I cover more vocal, traditional tunes, so we complement each other really well."
"Back When I Had You" contains four of Goorskey's instrumental pieces, four of Patrick's vocals and two traditional bluegrass songs.
"It was a lot of fun to make because we're really working on developing a sound," Goorskey said. "Scott and I playing together have a really unique dialogue between us that you can really hear on the album that really meshes well as musicians."
Heather Berry added vocals on three songs on the CD, "Sawin' On a String," "Fade Away" and "Back When I Had You."
"What's great about their CD is they've got a little of everything -- traditional bluegrass, contemporary styles, folksy sounding stuff," Berry said. "It's a little something for everybody."
Patrick said he would like to expand Blueview Records but still keep it as a side business featuring local singer/songwriters, acoustic performers and maybe some jazz or piano recordings. He also does sound work for local films, along with playing music and working with West Virginia bluegrass band Black Diamond, to supplement the studio's income.
"I do want to bring people in, but I would have to be very selective," Patrick said. "I had some advice early on: Always treat your music like a business and you'll never make a bad decision."
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