On any given Friday night, the stage at J Fiddler's Cafe is occupied by an interesting ensemble belting out bluegrass and Irish tunes on their fiddles and guitars.

The performers aren't the usual bluegrass-playing types. There's 12-year-old Dillon Hodges, his guitar teacher, Mark Campbell, and, occasionally, 17-year-old Taylor Grier on fiddle.

Hodges, a seventh-grader at Weeden Middle School, has been playing the guitar for a year and a half. "He's a prodigy, really," Campbell said. "He's ahead of where most people are on guitar after playing for a lifetime. He flat picks faster than I do."

Campbell has been playing music most of his life and has been teaching the past two years.

"I love working with these kids," he said, "and when they get to play on stage, it helps them gain confidence."

Grier, an 11th-grader at Covenant Christian School, took up the fiddle about four months ago. It was a natural transition from the violin, which he has played for five years.

"I love these two instruments

because they cover all your moods," Grier said. "The violin has real emotion, and what you can't express in words, you can with the violin. If I'm happy, I play the fiddle, and if I'm feeling down, the classical violin helps me get it out of my system."

For Hodges, his evolution from rock to blue grass has been a natural progression as well.

"I never imagined myself playing bluegrass," he said. "I play the electric guitar as well as acoustic, and when I first started, I just wanted to rock out. But when Mark started teaching me bluegrass, I just went crazy with it and the flat picking really tests my skills."

Hodges' and Campbell's association with J Fiddler's came about as a result of their participation in a picking event at the restaurant about a year ago. It was a Saturday night.

The restaurant owner, Phillip Herron, liked what he heard and invited them back to play on Friday nights. Most Friday nights, Campbell, Hodges and now Grier can be heard from 6-8 p.m.

Grier said he enjoys playing at the restaurant and is appreciative of the opportunity Herron has provided him.

"I have a lot of support with my music," he said of his family and friends. "Most of my friends aren't big bluegrass fans, but they're supportive of me, and we all have a good time with it."

Hodges said his friends have "come around to liking bluegrass a lot better."

"I've kind of brought it into my school," he said. "When they all heard me play, they didn't laugh anymore. Bluegrass rocks."

And, Hodges has rocked with his bluegrass outside the stage performance arena as well. Whenever possible, he and his family travel to fiddling conventions. There, he says, the competition is stiff. He jokes that most of the participants have been playing about four times longer than he's been alive.

"I don't go in expecting to win," he said. "I just want to learn from these guys. They're awesome."

But it was Hodges who took the title recently when he won a competition in Columbia, Tenn.

"I was the youngest there by a long shot," he said. "I won $30, too."

Both boys say that the music they've chosen provides them with an outlet to pursue throughout their lives.

Grier says he's undecided about his career after college, but he knows he'll play music the rest of his life.

Hodges hopes to have a career in music. At 12, he hasn't targeted any particular career but says, "I'll be happy as long as it has to do with music."

Hodges' father, Jeff, is the sports information director for the University of North Alabama. He has been careful to let his son pursue his own interests. At one time, Dillon was leaning toward playing football. Problem was, his guitar practice was taking up most of his time.

"My dad never pushed me into any certain sports, but a lot of other people have, saying I need to use these big hands of mine," he said. "My answer to that is, I use my hands all the time and at this point, I wouldn't chance breaking them in football. I couldn't stand not being able to play my guitar."

Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735 or lisa.singleton-rickman@timesdaily.com.