From the southern end of Pennsylvania, Tractor Jerry grew up with bluegrass festivals and parking lot music circles. Sunset Park sat a stone’s throw from his home in the backwoods of Chester County and featured a humble open air stage that was known for holding the weight of country and bluegrass legends. A tribute to Sunset Park wrote, “Long before country went mainstream, Sunset provided an outlet for hillbilly music at a time when hillbilly was still a term of disparagement. It was a bona fide underground scene, where farmers, factory workers and displaced Southerners could be found whooping it up in the Pennsylvania sticks”. 

A father’s love of bluegrass music and countless childhood afternoons at venues like Sunset, laid the foundation for a lifetime love of Grass and Roots music. In 2015, Tractor Jerry and the Mud Bucket is a band formed out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Debut self-titled album, aimed to muddle bluegrass and alt-country music. Tractor Jerry called upon some longtime fellow musicians to jump in the bucket and search for a sound that Jerry likes to call swamp grass. These whiskey soaked country stories have a boot cut and ball cap feel, cutting a path for a new breed of Hillbilly.