Lori Pegram had just fed her horse, Honey, and kicked off a pair of boots when the doorbell rang.

It was Jay Smith, right on time for his 7 p.m. banjo lesson. Finding a seat and putting his banjo in his lap, the South Tampa resident exhaled with a grin.

“Ready to try a tune?” Pegram asked.

“I think so,” said Smith, a Lubbock, Texas, native with the accent to prove it.

Surrounding him in Pegram’s unofficial home studio was an upright bass, fiddle and hammered dulcimer.

The instruments belong to Pegram and her husband, Randy. Otherwise known as Banjo Lulu and the Moose, the bluegrass-playing couple has performed at local venues, restaurants and festivals for years, sometimes as Blews Creek.

In moments, Smith was picking and Pegram was grinning.
He plucked the notes of “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” a traditional folk song, as she accompanied him on acoustic guitar.

She had told Smith they didn’t have to go through the whole thing, but something happened as the song progressed: The kind of thing that musicians intrinsically understand and non-musicians struggle to explain.

They didn’t say a word, but as they played, she began to hum. Then she sang softly. His fingers, at first seemingly hesitant on the fret board, relaxed and the notes flowed smoothly. They reached a more intricate segment and Smith’s mouth opened slightly, partly, it seemed, out of concentration, and partly, it seemed, out of wonder and pride.

He was getting it.

His head nodded slightly with the rhythm.

If Pegram sensed her student’s soaring confidence, she didn’t necessarily show it.

She smiles all the time.

‘She Overcomes’

Her lips even form a cheerful expression as her eyebrows show concern, like when she tells you that Randy Pegram, her longtime companion, musical partner and husband of two years, is recovering from an apparently successful bout against cancer that left him weak and at least temporarily unable to sing.

A civil engineer and bassist who once toured with the bluegrass band Sweetwater, Randy Pegram was diagnosed in March. As he struggled violently through treatments, the couple’s beloved horse, Frosty, died in the backyard.

“Talk about a bad month,” she said.

  I first wrote about Lori five years ago, when she was still Lori Mulford. It was an assumedly straight-forward profile about someone new to the area trying to reignite a banjo-teaching career that was sparked not long after she picked up the instrument at age 18. She cracked “Deliverance” jokes and spoke proudly of her native Scotch Plain, N.J. Not until the interview was practically over did she reveal what I never would have known. Lori was a high school senior when she was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, which has impaired her hearing enough that she usually wears a hearing aid. The disease, which also causes vertigo and nausea, is incurable. Stress and intense weather trigger her symptoms. While life has been good to the Pegrams since the story ran – they got married and she secured a full-time job as a sign-language interpreter for a deaf student at Caminiti Exceptional Center in Tampa – it also has delivered multiple wallops. A few years ago, she, too, was diagnosed with cancer, but eventually beat it. “She overcomes,” said neighbor and friend Mary Benson, who became my all-time favorite Tribune reader after answering a published plea for information about Lori last month. Benson has known the Pegrams practically since they moved down the street from her several years ago. That wasn’t surprising. “She’s very talkative and bubbly,” Benson said of Lori. “They have a lot of things going on in their lives. They’re busy going places all the time.” Despite Randy’s recent health scare, Benson said her friend still managed to smile. “They got over it together,” she said. “Some people don’t make it together.”

Keep On Smiling

Inside the Pegrams’ comfortable home, a mandolin hangs on a wall across from a piano.

In a corner is a stringed instrument called a bouzouki.

Besides a minor flub on the last note of “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” Smith, 31, had gotten through the song better than expected.

  He said the progress he has made since becoming Pegram’s student in March makes it worth the rush-hour drive to Quail Hollow, north of State Road 54 and just west of Interstate 75. Besides, he is a traveling research-and-development chef for Carrabba’s Italian Grill and she was willing to accommodate his schedule. “I’ve come a long way” since March, Smith said. “This is my third instructor and she’s by far my favorite – very hands-on and shows you everything visually and plays it for you. She goes step-by-step, writes it out and sings it every which way. “I just want to be able to play comfortably and with other people in a group setting. That’s what is unique about her. In bluegrass, the [musicians] kind of switch around playing the lead. No other instructors have showed me what I’m supposed to be doing while the others are playing.” He described his instructor as kind, patient and passionate. A banjo in her lap, she said the instrument is easy to learn. “This is all it is,” she said, the fingers on her right hand dancing effortlessly across the strings. Of course, the best figure skaters make their grueling sport look easy; tennis great Roger Federer never seems to sweat; and channeling explosive emotion seems as natural to Robert DeNiro as taking a deep breath. She plucked “Greensleeves,” a decidedly non-traditional banjo tune. Afterward, she said she and Randy were soon going to Sarasota for their anniversary. He was feeling better and there was a bluegrass event in the area that they might attend. She strummed the strings again and smiled. That wasn’t surprising. She smiles all the time.