David Peterson's band, 1946, takes its name from a pivotal year in bluegrass music history, but don't expect him to play much bluegrass music when he performs Friday in a concert at the Imperial Theatre.

"The show we're doing in Augusta will be David Peterson's Old Time Country Revue," the 41-year-old musician said in a telephone interview from his Nashville, Tenn., area home.

"We'll be doing some Hank Snow, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Little Jimmy Dickens and Webb Pierce, traditional country songs with a little bluegrass," he added.

Mr. Peterson will be singing lead and playing acoustic rhythm guitar with David Greer on electric guitar, Ron Shuffler on upright bass Tom Giampietro on snare drums with brushes and Pete Finney on pedal steel.

The band takes its name from the year that bluegrass legend Bill Monroe hired banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitar player Lester Flatt for his Bluegrass Boys band, thereby revolutionizing bluegrass music and giving the musical genre its own special sounds.

Mr. Peterson first planned to be a preacher and even earned a bachelor's degree in pastoral studies at the Southwestern Assemblies of God University at Waxahachie, Texas.

"I found through the course of that experience that music is what I needed to be doing," he said. "I know my studies will be used in some way, but I feel like my vocational calling is music."

It wasn't such a big leap of faith, since Mr. Peterson had grown up in East Bridgewater, Mass., near Boston, loving bluegrass, folk, blues and country music.

"The broadcast signal of WWVA from Wheeling, W.Va., was strong, and we also listened to WSM radio in Nashville in the winter on a clear night," he said. "And there were some great Boston stations playing country.

"People who got me to playing bluegrass were influenced by the folk music in the '60s. ... I would hang out with the family of Dave McPherson, whose boys were friends of mine. They would have a weekly jam session with five to eight people usually playing on Friday nights."

"I remember the great impact it had hearing that music right up on it. Right after that, I got a banjo and began playing five-string style."

Thirteen years ago, Mr. Peterson moved to Nashville on the advice of a friend, Scott Miller, who had landed a job playing rhythm guitar for country singer Terri Clark.

That eventually led to Mr. Peterson's becoming a friend of Bill Monroe in Monroe's final days.

"I didn't know Bill really well, but got to go over to his house in 1995 and play and sing some old Monroe tunes with him," Mr. Peterson said. "He was recovering from pneumonia. I remember playing My Rose of Old Kentucky and asked him, 'Do you want to play the mandolin?' He said, 'No, you're doing a good job.' "

JAYCIE WARD, 10-YEAR-OLD daughter of Cathy and Bobby Ward of Beech Island, on July 26 won the sixth annual Colgate Country Showdown talent contest sponsored by a radio station in Walhalla, S.C.

She defeated 21 other contestants to advance to a regional competition Aug. 22 in Duluth, Ga.

Jaycie also will sing God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch at the Atlanta Braves game Aug. 17 at Atlanta's Turner Field.