BY KIM McKINNEY

Adam Lawrence has always been a dreamer.

Throughout the Mooresville musician’s life, one dream has always led to another.

“When I started to learn guitar and started to play music, my first dream was to play a song. My second dream was to play a song with people – friends and family. Then I wanted to play a solo. Then I wanted to be able to play in front of people. Then I wanted to make some money at it. Then I wanted to play to inspire. I wanted to play with a band. I wanted to play with my father.

“It’s been a ladder of dreams to get where I am now,” he added.

Playing at MerleFest and traveling across the country are just two of the dreams he has accomplished.

“It was always a dream and a steppingstone, and I wanted to build my life around it,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence’s dad, Jack Lawrence, became Doc Watson’s sideman after his son Merle passed away.

Adam grew up feeling that Doc and Rosalie Watson were family. As a child, he received Christmas and birthday presents from them. He knew what his dad did for a living, but Adam was more interested in sports at the time – football, wrestling, and baseball were his passions.

When Adam was young his dad bought him and his siblings a keyboard. Adam and his sister both played around with it. A guitar also appeared, and he eventually picked that up too. He started playing at 17.

The first song he learned was “Over the Hills and Far, Far Away” by Led Zepplin.

“Many dreams come true
And some have silver linings
I live for my dream
And a pocketful of gold”
-Robert Plant & Jimmy Page

After Lawrence started playing the guitar, a Doc Watson CD, “Docabilly,” appeared at the house. He listened to the CD over and over again — figuring out which solos were Doc’s and which were his dad’s, and the other musicians playing on the album.

About that same time, he started going to shows on his own. He was entranced by live music. He felt the magic.

“I saw them doing this amazing thing in front of all these people – it was beautiful music they were playing and it just blew my mind. I just thought, ‘This is so cool!’ And it just clicked in my head that this was something I wanted to do.”

While Lawrence knows his father’s talent influenced him, he credits his mother’s love for music and patience while listening to him practice for hours on end.

Lawrence met his wife Sydney while they were students at Mooresville High School. He admits he had a crush at the time, but it was years later that they got together when a friend re-introduced them.

“Dad always told me to marry someone as smart or smarter than myself. So I did.”

Lawrence plays with the band Coddle Creek. They describe their music as “creekgrass – sometimes it’s clean and smooth-flowing and other times it’s dirty and raging.”

He also has a day job – he works as an electrician doing industrial and commercial work.

Balancing his career and music and family is tricky, Lawrence said. While one of his dreams has always been to inspire, he has also learned that his love of music should never hurt anyone – especially his family.

“You have to have a great partner to get to go out and do this stuff.”

Sydney is an excellent singer in her own right and has understood from the start that music was going to be an important component of their life.

Adam and Sydney want their 2-year-old son Gus to grow up with music and community around him.

Gus has already been to music festivals and concerts.

“Watching the wonder in his eyes every year and every time we take him somewhere new — seeing him listen to the music and watching how he reacts to it is one of the favorite things I see,” Lawrence said.

Family is now Lawrence’s priority. Combining family with music has become the next rung on his ladder of dreams.

“My next goal is to have myself, my wife, my son, and my father play together,” Lawrence said.

Three generations together, doing something they love — it’s another beautiful dream.