Rachel started learning violin in public school starting around 6th grade. One of her scholarships for college included classical violin. After leaving college she returned home to work at a mental hospital temporarily, to get a feel for the field she was about to pursue her Doctorate in, Psychology. She also wanted to help her parents Klaus and Julia, naturalized German-American citizens, as her mother was a recent cancer survivor and her father an amputee. Her parents continually urged her to pay a visit to a local bar where their good friend Smilin’ Bob Lewis played with a bluegrass band every Thursday. She finally went and the course of her life changed forever.