Young banjo players Jerron Paxton and Kaia Kater hail from places that are pretty far removed from the American South. But as they learned their instruments and connected with banjo mentors, they found old-time music well beyond its reputed home region. Paxton and Kater both started out playing bluegrass music. “I was a little fat boy in Compton with a straw hat and overalls trying to be like Earl Scruggs,” Paxton recalls. The popularity of bluegrass made it easy to find, even in California. The