As teen-agers, Kevin Sproul of Orono and Terry Spearrin of East Millinocket helped each other pick out the chords to rock ‘n’ roll hits on AM radio during family vacations on the shores of Upper Jo-Mary Lake.

More than 20 years later, their musical tastes transformed, the two met again and kept running into each other at bluegrass performances. At a weekend music festival in 1997, they sat around pickin’ and jammin’ under the stars just as they had so many years ago.

Last summer, Spearrin and Sproul, along with Sproul’s wife, Elise, and Bernie Staples, began performing together. The Sprouls had performed as a duo, the Rare Birds, for many years, while Staples and Spearrin had played with the group Good Clean Fill.

In their new band, named Chairback Gap after the valley between Columbus and Chairback mountains in the northern Maine wilderness, Kevin Sproul plays mandolin and guitar, Elise Sproul plays banjo and guitar, Staples plays guitar and Spearrin plays stand-up bass. They all do vocals.

“All of us had an interest in bluegrass music, and both our other bands had broken up,” explained Elise Sproul. “So we made it a project to put something together.”

With the Sprouls now living in Lakeview Plantation, Spearrin in Skowhegan and Staples in Norridgewock, getting together for rehearsals can be difficult. They alternate practicing at each other’s homes, which means a 90-minute commute for the band members doing the traveling. But it’s worth it, said Elise Sproul. The long travel time also turned out to be inspiring. The Sprouls have composed a couple of songs about their “adventures” along Route 16.

Bluegrass originated from the hardscrabble lives of the men and women of the hills and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains. Like blues and jazz, it is considered a uniquely American style of music. The bluegrass sound, characterized by a driving, syncopated rhythm, tight, complex harmonies, and the use of higher keys was spread throughout the United States during the Great Depression by way of the radio.

However, like most Maine-based bluegrass bands, Chairback Gap performs an eclectic mix of country, folk, gospel, and even some rock ‘n’ roll along with traditional and original bluegrass tunes. Last month, the group performed for the first time at Borders Books, Music and Cafe to a standing-room-only crowd.

While the audience sang along with familiar songs such as Johnny Cash’s classic “Ring of Fire” and the spiritual “When the Angels Carry Me Home,” it was Chairback Gap’s original music that stopped book browsers in their tracks. Shoppers crowded the magazine racks just outside the cafe area, as the quartet harmonized to sing, ” … and the snow flew around us like a white ghost in the night.” The tune is about a near-fatal accident the Sprouls witnessed last year while driving home from a gig at the Left Bank Cafe in Blue Hill.

“It was March 15, 1998, my birthday,” recalled Elise Sproul, who works as a developmental therapist. “We were stopped at a stop sign in downtown Milo, ready to turn onto the road toward home, when I heard this big crash and a bang, then, saw snow fly out of the corner of my eye.

“It turns out the driver, who’d had too much to drink and was doing 65 to 70 in a 25 mph zone, had bounced off a snowbank. Her car became airborne and, literally, flew over the top of our GMC Jimmy. A few days later, I told Kevin, `We have to write a song about this.’ I think it helped us [deal with the trauma], and we like how the song turned out.”

In the tradition of the great bluegrass composers, Kevin Sproul and his bandmates have been inspired to pen tunes about their experiences, the topography and the “open road.” The band’s original work includes a song about mud season and “the straight stretch of Route 16 that runs through LaGrange.”

Sproul, a self-employed carpenter, does most of the booking for the group. He observed that work and family obligations, as well as the distance between members, make it “challenging” to book gigs for Chairback Gap. Spearrin, who works for Sappi International, and Staples, a Bell Atlantic employee, arranged for a show in Skowhegan last month. The band is scheduled to play at the Hebron Pines Bluegrass Festival over Memorial Day weekend.

“There’s a not a lot of money in playing bluegrass,” confessed Kevin Sproul. “And we put in a lot of hours, but it feels pretty good …”

Judging by the reception from the crowd at Borders, Chairback Gap sounds better than pretty good.

To inquire about performance dates, call Kevin Sproul at 965-8622 or email, ksproul@kynd.net.