An Interview with Special Consensus Mandolinist 

Michael Prewitt Special Consensus mandolin player Michael Prewitt grew up on an old tobacco farm in Whitley County, a 45-minute drive east of Somerset. It wasn’t until he left Eastern Kentucky for an English degree at grad school in North Dakota that he began to reexamine his bluegrass roots. “As far as making a conscious choice to seek out Kentucky traditions and integrate them into my personal life and mental health—the first time I ever did that was when I moved away and was homesick,” he says. He’s been a musician his whole life. He started playing fiddle at 6 or 7 and picked up the mandolin at 12. A couple of his teachers sponsored an after-school bluegrass band called Colonel Strings. They let students check out instruments, and Michael decided to go for the mandolin.  “When I first picked up the mandolin, it just made so much more sense (than the fiddle). I think because of the frets—you could actually see them,” Michael says. That was when he got s