...after all that time at sea, we were ready to pick!

The "Fuzzy Bottom Boys" (the band that almost never was). Possibly considered one of the best non-professional bluegrass bands in the U.S. Navy in 2003. The FBB was a band that performed briefly aboard America's Flagship...the USS Constellation (CV 64) during the last few weeks of the ship's final deployment.

This performance date: Sometime during the Tiger Cruise - May 2003. (There's an actual photo of the FBB playing for the steel beach picnic, in USS Constellation's final cruise book, VOL XXI, page 434.)

The FFB:
Paul Carelli - Guitar, Vocals
Brandon Renna - Fiddle, Vocals
Wayne French - Banjo
Don Langford - Guitar, Electric Bass, Vocals
Jeremy Allen - Electric Bass, Vocals
Ian Vatet - Electric Bass, Electric Guitar

How we came to be:
The most amazing thing about the FBB, is even though we were all deployed aboard "The Connie" for nearly 7 months straight...we never knew each other!
Fact is, we were just returning from duty in the Persian Gulf and on our way south to Perth, Australia for some R&R (before returning to San Diego for the ship's decommissioning).
One evening, Paul was walking down a passageway by the medical department and overheard someone (Brandon) playing a fiddle. And then a few days later, Wayne passed through that same area and overheard Brandon too. (Thank goodness for Brandon's diligent practice.) To make a long story short, Brandon knew a few other guys, introduced us, and then we all made it a point to get together as soon as possible.
After all that time at sea...we were ready to pick!
So, in the span of about three weeks, we got together, practiced and decided to play wherever we could.
In all, we played a total of four shows: The Steel Beach Picnic; VS-38RR; VAW-116RR; and VMFA-323RR.

Coming up with the FBB name:
In trying to find a name to call ourselves, we wanted to use Paul's call sign "fuzzy" in it. Also, one of the songs we were doing was from the fictitious band Soggy Bottom Boys (from the movie Oh Brother, Where art Thou?). Since we didnt take ourselves seriously...we slammed the two together and proclaimed ourselves with this very prestigious and unique title.

It was a blast playing with these fine gentlemen! But, we all knew that the clock was ticking, and would bring an end to our band (and the ship) as we knew it. So, in spite of our crazy work schedules -we relished every moment and gave it all we could, and the results are what you see here. It was far from perfect, possibly "diamonds in the rough" you might say.
We enjoyed this moment in time -of shared friendship, practice, and the chance to try to make some great music together one last time...before we reached the pier and had to say "fair winds and following seas" shipmate.

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