When Springtime Comes Again: 12 Bluegrass Songs for Spring

We hope, wherever you’re reading this from, that snow, frost, and the cold are truly retreating, giving way to longer days, warmer weather, and the gorgeous, humid, cicada-soundtracked days of summer. But, before we get to full-blown bluegrass season – and, hopefully, our first live music forays since COVID-19 shut the industry down in early 2020 – let’s take a moment to intentionally enjoy spring with these 12 bluegrass songs perfect for collecting a wildflower bouquet, romping and frolicking in the meadow, and pickin’ on the back porch while the evenings are still cool. 

“Wild Mountain Flowers for Mary” – Lost & Found

A classic via Lost & Found, bluegrass certainly does not lack metaphors and analogies for love built around spring and the flowers re-emerging – see “Your Love is Like a Flower” below – but this somewhat melancholy track is an exceptional example of the form. And that banjo solo by Lost & Found founding member Gene Parker will stop you dead in your tracks.


“There Is a Time” – The Dillards

Famous for the rendition sung by Charlene Darling of the ever-popular Darling family on The Andy Griffith Show, this haunting, seemingly timeless folky melody from The Dillards – who also played members of the Darling clan – cautions, “…Do your roaming in the springtime/ And you’ll find your love in the summer sun.” The suspensions in the banjo roll linger on the minor chord, echoing this sentiment and categorizing spring not by its own, shining qualities, but by the darkness in winter and fall. A true classic.


“Little Annie” – Molly Tuttle, Alison Brown, Kimber Ludiker, Missy Raines

A staple of impromptu pickin’ parties and jam circles, “Little Annie” is properly ensconced within the bluegrass canon, but is infused with new life in this application by Tuttle’s lead vocal, a slight queering of the lyric that’s perfectly at home in the hands of this veritable supergroup, assembled by D’Addario at Folk Alliance International’s conference in 2018. 


“Texas Bluebonnets” – Laurie Lewis 

Laurie Lewis is effortlessly, archetypically bluegrass even, if not especially, in applications that infuse other genres into the music, like this Tex-Mex flavored, twin fiddle arrangement of “Texas Bluebonnets” that truly never gets old. Yes, that’s Peter Rowan and Sally Van Meter guesting, and Tom Rozum jumping onto lead during the choruses so Lewis can utter the tastiest tenor harmony vocal. Stick around for the Texas double-fiddle break and do yourself a favor and bookmark the track for easy reference. You’ll be returning to it often, as this writer does. 


“The First Whippoorwill” – Bill Monroe 

The birds returning in spring are a sure sign of the seasons changing and the warm weather returning, though the whippoorwill’s role in folk music has always been as a bittersweet harbinger, never quite viewed without at least some semblance of suspicion, perhaps an acknowledgement of the whippoorwill’s mournful tendency of singing long into the dead of night. This recording of “The First Whippoorwill” is a tasty example of Monroe’s iconic high lonesome sound, with acrobatic breaks into entrancing falsetto woven into the harmonies. 


“Sitting on Top of the World” – Carolina Chocolate Drops

Whether you know this common blues, old-time, and bluegrass number from the Mississippi Sheiks, Doc Watson, John Oates, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, or any other of its many, many sources the fact still stands: Don’t like peaches? Don’t shake the tree. Demonstrably a song for spring, summer, and beyond.


“Roses in the Snow” – Emmylou Harris

Though BGS calls sunny southern California home – and BGS South is relatively temperate and mild in Nashville, TN – we know there are climes across this continent where spring promises snow as reliably as thaw. Emmylou Harris released her iconic bluegrass album in 1980 and its title track is another homage to love bringing warmth, newness, and growth even in the cold: “Our love was like a burning ember/ It warmed us as a golden glow/ We had sunshine in December/ And grew our roses in the snow…”


“Each Season Changes You” – The Osborne Brothers

Love is as fickle as the breeze! There’s a small irony in the song’s central conflict, that the singer’s love changes their mind as often as the seasons change – which, when taken whole, seems like a much more stable, predictable love than most? Even so, and done in so many different iterations, the central metaphor still holds, forever baked into the vernacular of these folk musics.


“One Morning in May” – Jeff Scroggins & Colorado

If you’ve been a bluegrass fan over the past five to ten years and you don’t immediately hear Greg Blake’s voice singing “One Morning in May” whenever it pops into your head, something must be awry. During Blake’s stint with Jeff Scroggins & Colorado, this spring-centered track was a highlight of their live show, a clean, modern rendering of what’s a properly ancient folk lyric. Lost love, war, nightingales, and yes, springtime – it has everything! 


“Your Love is Like a Flower” – Flatt & Scruggs

Perhaps the song that defines the form. Flatt’s languid, lazy phrasing seems to underline the leisure of spring that grows into the laziness of summer. The rhythm of love, tied to the seasons and the budding blooms. Another timeless sentiment, distilled into a favorite, stand-by bluegrass number.


“Springtime in the Rockies” – Lead Belly

You know the film and the country hit, but have you heard Lead Belly himself tell the story of hearing the tune from “Gene” coming by and playing him some music? Worth a listen and worth inclusion on this list, which would suffer if it didn’t include “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies” in one form or another!


“Spring Will Bring Flowers” – Balsam Range

Processing grief and loss through the ever- and unchanging seasons is a common thread through rootsy songs about spring. This more recent recording from powerful North Carolina bluegrass vocal group Balsam Range hearkens back to springy, ‘grassy numbers from across the ages – its intermittent banjo licks a call back to Jimmy Martin’s “world filled with flowers” in “Ocean of Diamonds.” 


Background photo by velodenz on Foter.com

Danny Paisley & Southern Grass Find a Family Blend on ‘Bluegrass Troubadour’

After nearly 50 years in bluegrass, Danny Paisley has reached something of a breakout moment. He won Male Vocalist of the Year honors at the 2020 IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards — his second time in the past five years and his third IBMA trophy overall.

Paisley started performing bluegrass music as a teenager when he joined the Southern Mountain Boys, a band his father Bob co-founded with Ted Lundy. Lundy’s sons, TJ and Bobby, played in that group too, and now are in Southern Grass, the band Danny now leads. The lineup also features his son, Ryan, giving this traditional bluegrass group a unique two-family, three-generation legacy. Earlier this month, the band released Bluegrass Troubadour, their first album for Pinecastle Records. They recorded it last fall with producer Wes Easter, whom Paisley praises for his good ideas and good vibes, sharing that “after every session we were just happy and couldn’t wait to go back the next day.”

Speaking to BGS from his home in Landenberg, the southeastern Pennsylvania town where the singer-guitarist grew up, Paisley talks about how his not-strictly-traditional sound was shaped by that area’s rich musical history and how the new generation is rethinkng bluegrass.

BGS: You’ve been a bluegrass professional almost your entire life. When did you join your father’s band?

Paisley: I started playing with my father and traveling the rooms around 1974-75. Ted Lundy and my dad had a band for years. Ted’s sons, TJ and Bobby, started playing and I started playing, so we became a family group within the two families. Totally like a big family. Their mom is like my mom. And they call my mom “mom.” We grew up together. Basically all our lives we’ve been playing music together. That pretty much carried all the way through, because the Lundy brothers are back playing with me.

How was it being in a band where your dad was the boss?

Sometimes I would say to my dad, “I have this great idea.” Ever patient as he was, he always knew how to handle every situation. He’d always look at you and go: “That’s great, that’s great, when you get your own band you can try that.” To this day, I laugh about that. And I use that, too, on my son.

Now you have a similar situation with your son Ryan in Southern Grass. Does he bring a different generational perspective?

He wants to do more things [with technology], where I’m still old school and like to do things my way. He has good ideas and it makes me have to rethink… Young minds are sometimes way better than old minds. It’s hard for the younger generation today — for the third generation of bluegrassers to relate to the “Blue Ridge Cabin Home on the Hill.” They love the song, but not that theme of the cabin on the hill and things like that from the old days. I have heard of that from my grandparents. Now with the next generation, it is washed down even more.

The area where you grew up seems to have been a great musical influence.

I was very lucky. I grew up in a place here where there was a country music park, Sunset Park. On Sundays, they would have a major country or bluegrass artist… Bill Monroe, Mac Wiseman, Osborne Brothers… I got to see all of my heroes within five miles of my house. Down the road about 15-20 miles was another park called New River Ranch. It had the Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Reno & Smiley. Any given Sunday within 20 miles, you could go somewhere and hear some incredible music.

When I was very young, Flatt & Scruggs came and everyone was there to see Earl Scruggs. He was god to every banjo player and rightfully so. I remember that day leaving with this impression of Lester Flatt — just how calm he was and how he talked from the stage. He was in control of the whole thing so easily. … Del McCoury lived the next county over from me, so we often played shows with him. I loved his rhythm guitar playing and his voice. He could play that rhythm guitar and keep that band in time – he’d drive that band with that guitar. There was nothing like hearing him live.

Your music has been associated with “Baltimore Barroom Bluegrass” What was that scene like?

When I got older, there were all these bars and clubs in Baltimore, which is about 30 miles from home. I ended up playing in these clubs, four or five nights a week… you’d played from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., sometimes four or five sets. You got your chops in. You had a broad repertoire and you were playing to people who knew the music because Baltimore became a hub for Southerners who moved up from Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky for work. They were hard-living, hard-drinking, and hard-driving bluegrass fans. There’d be fights. There’d be carrying on, but boy you could have fun!

And another regional musical influence on you was the Galax sound, right?

Galax is a town in southern Virginia, on the state line of North Carolina and Virginia, and the Old Fiddlers Convention there draws thousands from all over the world. The Galax sound features a lot of fiddle — maybe not your standard bluegrass fiddle tunes, but a lot of different fiddle tunes that made their way into bluegrass music. …

Their banjo players had a certain sound to their playing. Ted Lundy had it. He came from Galax and my dad’s family came from over the state line in Ashe County, North Carolina. So naturally they would be drawn together when they got up here. Ola Belle Reed, who wrote “High on a Mountain,” lived a few miles from where I’m at here. She was from that same region. The driving banjo — there is a certain style in their hands and in their noting. You can tell they are from the Galax area. I play [guitar] with a thumb pick where a lot of the bluegrass guys play with a flat pick. That was from my dad also.

So Southern Grass’ driving rhythms are like a handed-down legacy?

Yes, of that area and of our fathers. We keep the rhythm sort of pumping, but you’ve got to play to each song. We’ll work the song. As the singer eases off singing, the rhythm will pull back, too, and then you can build back up. We do a lot of stuff like that dynamic. That’s what I like about my style of music, knowing and feeling the song.

Bobby Lundy used to play the banjo in the band and decided he needed some time off. When he said he was able to play, I needed a bass player. I call him my utility man of bluegrass, like he could play any position on a baseball team — he’s that talented. Because he has known me for so long, he knows what I am going to do on a guitar. He knows what I am going to do singing. He can walk me right into the singing with his bass. He can lead me right into the voice. He can just push the band and keep that timing from not going too fast or too slow. He can just keep it rock steady.

How did you pick songs for your new album?

Two of them [“He Can’t Own Them” and “I Never Was Too Much”] were written by Eric Gibson of the Gibson Brothers. He’s always one of my favorite writers. He sent a gang of songs he had not recorded. Every one of them was a great song. Those were the two that fit my style. Brink Brinkman — another excellent bluegrass songwriter — told me, “I have a song that I’d like you to hear.” As soon as I heard it [“Date With an Angel”], I wrote back: “I want it!”

“May I Sleep in Your Barn, Mister,” I learned from a guy named Cullen Galyean, a banjo picker and a great mountain singer from down in the Galax, Virginia, area. “Eat at the Welcome Table” is an old-timey spiritual song. When my dad moved up here to Pennsylvania, his neighbors were an African-American farming family. They had an old-timey string band and played gospel songs. They would sing that song. We put our own spin on it.

The album has an interesting mix of songs that come from different styles and influences.

That’s how music generally works for me. I love it all, and then I make it my own. My band is rooted in traditional music and traditional ways, but that shouldn’t hamper or restrict you. So, I keep my ears open to all kinds of things. You can sometimes take an idea from a non-bluegrass artist and use it in bluegrass.

It’s that way with my singing. I listen to everything from George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis and Vince Gill to opera singers like Pavarotti – these guys all amaze me. How they control their voice and present it with such tone. For me that was lacking in my singing and I had to work at that… I learned to sing a little different as I got older – to take the edge off the high tenor part a bit. Things like that, and I noticed that people were responding better.

Congratulations on winning your second IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year win. Was the victory sweeter the second time around?

The first time I was so shocked. Any category when you are up there with Russell Moore, Del McCoury — all these guys that I enjoy. You’re shocked that people would appreciate what you do. The second time, it was like, “Oh my goodness.” It didn’t really set in until the next day or so. I love to go out and play to make people happy. I never thought of being something like Male Vocalist of the Year. It’s always the dream for everybody. It’s always a dream to play the Grand Ole Opry, but you’ve got to keep it realistic. A life lesson early on that I got from my dad: never get to where you think you’re better than anybody else. Because as soon as you do that, you’ll realize that you’re not.


Photo of Danny Paisley and Ryan Paisley courtesy of Pinecastle Records.

Bluegrass Memoirs: Old-time, Ragtime, & Mrs. Etta Baker

On October 3, 2020, during IBMA’s Virtual World of Bluegrass, I watched the Bluegrass Situation‘s presentation of Shout & Shine Online, the fifth annual showcase celebrating equity and inclusion in bluegrass and roots music. This year it featured Black performers, including Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, the blues, folk, bluegrass, and jazz multi-instrumentalist and vocalist from South Los Angeles. Not only do I enjoy his music, I also relish his asides and introductions. He knows a lot about musical sources, histories and meanings.  

Introducing his music, Paxton explained that “ragtime” was the word people in his home community used to describe what others might call “old-time” or “traditional” — music that rekindled a shared past. At neighborhood and family social gatherings, he said, people would ask for his music by saying, “Play some of that ragtime music!” 

For many people ragtime evokes the aural image of a piano played in the style of early 20th century composer Scott Joplin, an African American whose “Maple Leaf Rag” starred in the soundtrack of the 1973 hit film The Sting. (Paxton performed an arrangement of “Maple Leaf Rag” on five-string banjo for his Shout & Shine Online set.) The basic structure of this solo piano music involves the left hand keeping the rhythm often with large leaps in the bass register — often referred to as “stride” — while the right hand plays syncopated melody on the upper register. 

In this form, ragtime is thought of as an urban phenomenon, straddling the border between popular and classical, and as the musical precursor of jazz. Joplin, for instance, composed an opera in 1911, and Julliard piano professor Joshua Rifkin’s 1971 LP of Joplin’s works earned a Grammy nomination. Pioneer jazz pianists like Jelly Roll Morton included ragtime in their repertoires.

Ragtime had another manifestation in the southeast, where Black musicians adapted it to the guitar in a fingerpicking style. Here, the right hand did all the work: the thumb picking the rhythm on the bass strings while the index and middle fingers ragged the tune on the higher strings.

The guitar was more affordable and portable than the piano. Ragtime guitar was featured by early 20th century itinerant musicians like Arnold Shultz in western Kentucky and Blind Boy Fuller in North Carolina. But it was not just the music of popular entertainment, it was also, as Paxton explained, social community music, performed for friends and neighbors. 

In 1957, ragtime fingerpicking was a “new thing” within the folk music world that I was becoming acquainted with as a college student. I switched from nylon- to steel-string guitar and started wearing picks on my right hand. One of the recordings popular with us at Oberlin College was a track Peggy Seeger fingerpicked and sang on her 1955 Folkways LP, Songs of Courting and Complaint: “Freight Train.” She’d learned the song and its guitar accompaniment from the Black woman who worked as her family’s maid, North Carolinian Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, its composer.

In 1958 Peggy’s brother Mike Seeger produced Cotten’s first album for Folkways. “Freight Train,” already her best-known song, was on it:

Another tune we were trying to fingerpick in our dorm rooms and dining hall jam sessions was “Railroad Bill.” That song had been recorded by Virginia multi-instrumentalist and virtuoso Hobart Smith back in the ’40s. 

“Discovered” at the White Top (Virginia) folk festival in 1936, Smith and his sister, singer Texas Gladden, subsequently performed at the White House and were recorded for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax in 1942. In 1946, Lomax introduced Hobart to New York record company owner Moses Asch. One of Asch’s new Disc label 78s launched Smith’s version of “Railroad Bill” into aural tradition among ’50s fingerpickers. Lomax recorded Smith again in 1959:

Smith had studied and learned fiddle and banjo with African American musician neighbors at a time when the realities of segregation forced him and his friends to visit them surreptitiously. He was inspired to take up the guitar when he saw an itinerant Black bluesman, whom he identified as Blind Lemon Jefferson. 

“Railroad Bill” was a well-known song in the southeast. Another song with a similar melody was “The Cannon Ball,” which Maybelle Carter of the famous Carter Family learned from Burnsville, North Carolina, native Lesley Riddle. In the late twenties and early thirties Riddle, an African American, accompanied A.P. Carter on song collecting trips and taught the family several songs they later recorded. Here’s a 1936 radio transcription of Maybelle singing and picking “The Cannon Ball”:

Mike Seeger recorded Riddle several times between 1965 and 1978; in 1993 Rounder issued a CD with 14 performances, including “The Cannon Ball”:

Riddle’s version, with its C to E chord change, is even closer to “Railroad Bill” than Maybelle’s. But in the mid-’50s, when I first became interested in this tune, no LP recordings of it were available. 

That changed in 1956, when a new version of “Railroad Bill” was released on an album, Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians. The first piece on the “B” side, it was fingerpicked by Mrs. Etta Baker: 

By the time I arrived at Oberlin College in 1957 it was an underground favorite; the hip older students spoke about trying to play like Mrs. Etta Baker. Copies of the album were passed around.

This album was on the new folk music label Tradition. Based in New York, Tradition hit the ground running in 1956 with at least 14 albums representing Greenwich Village trends in the mid-’50s folk revival: lots of ballads, plenty of Irish and English singers, popular radio performers, folklore collectors, flamenco artists, new concert sensations, and two albums of field recordings in the style of Folkways — one from Ireland, and this one from Appalachia. The recordings for Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians were made by Tradition owner Diane Hamilton along with Liam Clancy and Paul Clayton in the summer of 1956. 

Diane Hamilton was the pseudonym of Diane Guggenheim (1924–1991), an American mining heiress with a lifelong interest in traditional music, particularly Irish. At the time of the recording, Liam Clancy, soon to become part of the famous Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, had just arrived in New York, following an attachment with Hamilton. His brother Paddy was president of her new company.

New Englander Paul Clayton had studied folklore at the University of Virginia while pursuing a career as a folksinger. He recorded many albums from the mid-’50s until his troubled life ended in 1967 at the age of 36. Today he’s perhaps best known as a songwriter. His “Gotta Travel On” was a country hit in 1958, and his friend Bob Dylan borrowed from one of his songs to compose “Don’t Think Twice.” In 1956 Tradition had just released Paul’s album, Whaling and Sailing Songs from the Days of Moby Dick.

In his notes for Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians, Clayton described the album as “the result of a folk-song collecting trip during the Summer of 1956.” Hamilton and Clancy had recently arrived in New York from Ireland; Clancy was keen on collecting southern folk songs, and Clayton, who’d done a lot of that, was the obvious choice for expert guide. 

The three met in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and headed west for a collecting trip to Appalachia. Their exact itinerary is unknown, but they went as far west as Beech Mountain, the highest point in the eastern U.S., well-known for its folk traditions. There they recorded folktale collector and performer Richard Chase doing three old-time dance tunes on the harmonica. In nearby Banner Elk, Mrs. Edd Presnell played three old-time tunes on her Appalachian dulcimer — an instrument then rarely heard on recordings that Clayton had studied and used in his performances. 

The trio also visited Hobart Smith in his Saltville, Virginia, home, seventy miles north of Beech Mountain, recording four fiddle tunes and one banjo piece. 

Their travel also took them to Blowing Rock, about a 25 mile drive from Beech Mountain, where they stopped in at the Moses H. Cone Mansion (also known as Flat Top Manor) a popular regional park on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Etta Baker, her father Boone Reid, and other family members were vacationing in the area, visiting the mansion. Reid, a musician himself, noticed Clayton was toting a guitar. He told Clayton of Baker’s musical talent and asked him to listen to Etta play her signature, “One Dime Blues.” According to Baker, “Paul was amazed. He got directions to our home and he was over the next day with his tape-recorder along with Liam Clancy and Diane Hamilton.”

They recorded five pieces. “Later,” says Clayton, “We met more of… a very talented family living in Morganton or Gamewell,” and they recorded two banjo pieces each by Boone Reid, then 79 years old, and Etta’s brother-in-law, her sister Cora Phillips’ husband Lacey. 

Clayton’s notes indicate that they recorded “considerable instrumental material,” from which they chose “typical and best-performed” examples. This considerable material subsequently disappeared, leaving us today with only the album’s 20 tracks

These include many familiar pieces from the local old-time repertoire. By following Harry Smith’s precedent in not identifying the color of performers’ skin, Clayton made the point that these musical traditions were regional, not racial. Perhaps since dulcimer player Mrs. Presnell’s first name was not given, all of the musicians were identified on the album notes as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” This lent an air of respect to the names of people often described elsewhere as “informants.” 

Because of her fine guitar playing Mrs. Etta Baker was, for us, the most memorable performer on the album. A word of explanation — Mr. Hobart Smith was a fine fiddler, but in 1956 the fiddle hadn’t caught on in the folk revival. That wouldn’t start to happen until a few years later when the New Lost City Ramblers appeared.

With the exception of Smith, who led a string band for a while, the folks on this album made music as part of their social life, playing for their own enjoyment and that of family and friends. Sometimes they provided music for dancing — square dancing, and solo step dancing.

Here’s a good example of ragtime guitar used for solo step dancing: Earl Scruggs playing “Georgia Buck” live in 1961. 

Another version was released in 1964 on the The Fabulous Sound of Flatt & Scruggs (Col CL 2255/CS 9055). The album notes say: “Georgia Buck, played by Scruggs on the guitar, represents the rhythmic beat of the old-time buck dancers.” 

According to NCPedia, “buck dancing is a folk dance that originated among African Americans during the era of slavery. It was largely associated with the North Carolina Piedmont and, later, with the blues. The original buck dance, or ‘buck and wing,’ referred to a specific step performed by solo dancers, usually men; today the term encompasses a broad variety of improvisational dance steps.” 

The Traditional Tune Archive describes “Georgia Buck” as “a black Southern banjo song,” so it’s interesting that Earl played it on the guitar in a style resembling that of Baker, Smith, Riddle and Carter. Where did he learn it that way? We don’t know, but Lester makes a point of describing his music as “hot” during the video and other musicians can be heard saying the same thing off-camera, seemingly endorsing the idea that this is good ragtime.

There are many stories of young white southern musicians learning from older black musicians in their hometown. One example: In 1972-73, Kenny Baker, then playing fiddle with Bill Monroe, did two albums with Buck Graves of guitar fingerpicking he’d learned from his brother, who’d taken lessons from “Earnest Johnson, a blind, black guitarist who sold peanuts in Jenkins, Kentucky during the thirties.” Rebel reissued them in 1989 as The Puritan Sessions (CD 1108).

Listening to Etta Baker on Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians was as close to taking lessons in that style of guitar as most of us undergrad folkies got. After the release of the album, she was not heard again on records for many years. Like Libba Cotten, Baker was a working woman with little time for making music. By the time she retired in 1973 from the Skyland Textile mill in Morganton, North Carolina, she’d endured family tragedies — the deaths of her husband and a son. After retirement she began accepting requests to perform and her music career developed. More about that next time…


Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee, and co-chair of the IBMA Foundation’s Arnold Shultz Fund.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

Born in North Carolina, These 10 Stars Shaped Classic Country Music

When it comes to bluegrass and classic country music, North Carolina offers a talent pool that rivals any other state. It’s also red hot on the modern country scene, with stars like Eric Church, Luke Combs, and Scotty McCreery hailing from the Tarheel State. Some would say these contemporary musicians are following in the footsteps of these 10 North Carolina-born artists who made a mark in country music history.

Earl Scruggs
b. 1924 in Flint Hill, N.C.

Without the banjo innovations of Earl Scruggs in Bill Monroe’s band, would we even have bluegrass? “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” are obvious Flatt & Scruggs classics, though his catalog runs deep — and his creativity blossomed further in the ’70s with the Earl Scruggs Revue. The city of Shelby has renovated its courthouse into the interactive Earl Scruggs Center.


Don Gibson
b. 1928 in Shelby, N.C.

This soft-spoken artist is arguably country music’s first triple threat — a commanding presence as a vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. Born poor, he persisted through every bad break until finally exploding in 1958 with “Oh Lonesome Me” and an Opry membership. He remained active on the charts for two more decades. Shelby has honored him, as well, with a live music venue, the Don Gibson Theater.


Fred Foster
b. 1931 in Rutherford County, N.C.

Behind the scenes, it’s hard to fathom just how well-connected Fred Foster was. He founded Monument Records in 1958 and produced all of Roy Orbison’s early hits on that label, gave Dolly Parton a publishing and label deal when she first moved to town, and landed a co-writing credit on Kris Kristofferson’s iconic “Me and Bobby McGee.” He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.


Stonewall Jackson
b. 1932 in Emerson, N.C.

After an impressive audition but no track record, Stonewall Jackson was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1956. For the next 10 years, he charged the country chart with “Life to Go” (written by George Jones), “Waterloo” (a five-week No. 1 in 1959), and “B.J. the DJ” (No. 1 in 1964). He sued Opry for age discrimination in 2006, then after a settlement, resumed appearances on the long-running show.


George Hamilton IV
b. 1937 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

From North Carolina to the world, George Hamilton IV may be the top international ambassador of his generation. His stardom began as a teenager with an unexpected million-selling pop hit, 1956’s “A Rose and a Baby Ruth.” He signed to RCA and the Opry in 1960, setting the foundation for a decade of radio success with “Abilene” (a four-week No. 1 classic), “Break My Mind,” “Early Morning Rain,” and more.


Del Reeves
b. 1932 in Sparta, N.C.

A 1965 novelty smash, “Girl on the Billboard” finally established Del Reeves as a likable country star (after four other record deals didn’t pan out). He’d go on to issue Top 10 singles through 1971, often singing for truckers on tracks like “The Belles of Southern Bell” and “Looking at the World Through a Windshield.” Known for his big personality, he joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1966.


Donna Fargo
b. 1945 in Mount Airy, N.C.

A leading artist of the 1970s, Donna Fargo won a Grammy, an ACM Award and a CMA Award for her 1972 breakout hit, “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” The feel-good release reached No. 1, as did her next three singles — and she wrote them all. Fargo taught high school English courses before exploring songwriting. By 1979, she’d notched 16 Top 10 country hits and landed her own syndicated variety show.


Ronnie Milsap
b. 1943 in Robbinsville, N.C.

Easily one of the most identifiable voices in country music, Ronnie Milsap dazzled listeners with charisma, musical talent, and an impeccable ear for hearing a hit. Inspired by R&B and country music alike, the entertainer shared his soul with fans for decades, with an astonishing 49 Top 10 country singles on RCA. One of the best, “Smoky Mountain Rain,” topped the chart in December 1980.


Charlie Daniels
b. 1936 in Wilmington, N.C.

Four decades later, Charlie Daniels Band is synonymous with “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Arguably the most famous fiddling song in the country music canon, the single won a Grammy and led to a guest spot in the era-defining film, Urban Cowboy. A member of the Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Daniels remained a highly visible entertainer, especially eager to support causes for veterans and children.


Randy Travis
b. 1959 in Marshville, N.C.

In the mid ’80s, Randy Travis was transformed from a dish-washing hopeful to a country music sensation. Plucked from the kitchen of the Nashville Palace onto the TNN airwaves, Travis was then reportedly rejected by every label in Nashville until finally signing to Warner Bros. And then “1982” changed everything. His resonant voice, though largely silenced now, will live on forever and ever, amen.


Photo of Charlie Daniels courtesy of Charlie Daniels Band, Inc.; Photo of Earl Scruggs by Al Clayton, provided by Sony Music; Photo of Randy Travis provided by 117 Entertainment Group.

Discover more about the North Carolina music scene and #NCMusicMonth through Come Hear North Carolina’s website and on Instagram at @comehearnc.

Bluegrass Memoirs: New Twists & Scruggs Pegs Take Off

In December 1953, Decca released “Plunkin’ Rag” by the Shenandoah Valley Boys. It was the first recording by a banjoist other than Earl Scruggs to use Scruggs pegs: Hubert Davis. 

Born in Shelby, North Carolina, in 1932, Davis grew up in a musical family. He was already playing the banjo when, at the age of ten, his older brother, fiddler Pee Wee, brought Earl Scruggs, a co-worker from Lilly Mills, into the family home for some music. Earl had just moved to town to work at the factory. He was boarding with another Lilly Mills employee, Grady Wilkie. In Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown: The Making of an American Classic author Thomas Goldsmith tells how Earl’s mother prevailed on her friend Wilkie to help Earl get a job at the mill. Wilkie, a guitarist, and Earl stowed their instruments in the car when they drove to work. In a 1977 interview, Hubert Davis told Bruce Nemerov that Pee Wee, Grady, and Earl: 

…worked on the second shift. They would catch up about supper time and they’d run out to the car and get their music out and run in to the packing house. They’d play for thirty minutes or an hour and go back to work. Swaller their food whole to get more time for pickin’. And I was there, son, at suppertime every evening. I was sitting there against the wall listenin’. 

By the time Hubert was fourteen (1946), he was studying Earl’s playing with Monroe on the Opry. Occasionally Earl came home, visited the Davises, and gave Hubert a banjo tutorial: “he’d show me the parts I didn’t have right.” 

At fifteen Hubert began playing professionally. By 1951 he was working for Virginian Jim Eanes. In 1948 Eanes had been an original member of Flatt & Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Boys, but was quickly hired away by Monroe. Bluegrass historian Jack Tottle tells what happened after Eanes joined Bill at the Opry: 

His full baritone-range voice turned out to be incompatible with Monroe’s mountain tenor for duet singing. To Jim’s frustration, no matter how high he sang, it was still too low for Monroe’s high vocal harmony. 

Eanes subsequently developed a career as a mellow country singer with a bluegrass band, recording for a small North Carolina label, Blue Ridge. Soon after Hubert joined him Jim had a hit with “Missing in Action,” a Korean war-themed country song. Ernest Tubb’s major-label cover on Decca was also a hit, giving Jim an opportunity to sign with Decca. 

Eanes began recording in Nashville in 1952 with producers Paul Cohen and Owen Bradley. In October 1953, after several country-sound sessions using studio musicians, Eanes returned to record with two members of his bluegrass band, the Shenandoah Valley Boys: Hubert Davis and Bobby Hicks. 

They made two banjo instrumentals: “Ridin’ the Waves” and “Plunkin’ Rag.” These were issued on a 78, credited not to Eanes but simply to The Shenandoah Valley Boys. In “Plunkin’ Rag” Davis used both Scruggs pegs to create the melody. Chet Atkins, playing backup guitar, is heard playing responsorial licks to the melody in its peg sections, and Bobby Hicks — this was his first recording session — contributes fiddle breaks. 

“Plunkin’ Rag” was released in December. By that time Davis had left Eanes, who then advertised over the air for a banjo player. A lanky teenager named Allen Shelton got the job. At the start, Eanes said, “he could only play one tune, but he would play all the time.” An enthusiastic learner, Shelton was a fan of Davis: “he was second to Scruggs as I ever heard it.” 

When the time came for Eanes’ next Decca session in Nashville, on March 2, 1954, Davis had rejoined the band. At this point, probably in February, as Davis recalled, he and Shelton met. Both later spoke of sitting up all night in a hotel room working on “some licks Scruggs was playing.” 

It’s certain that one of the two banjos in that hotel room had Scruggs pegs. Some of the licks they were working on must have involved the pegs, for Davis came to Eanes’ session with two instrumentals that used them: “Cotton Picker’s Stomp” and “There’s No Place Like Home.” 

“There’s No Place Like Home” was the title Decca gave to Davis’s version of “Home Sweet Home.” As with “Plunkin’ Rag,” Davis used the pegs to play the melody. But this was not a new composition, but a very old song, dating back to 1823. The novelty here, its hook, was the idea of using Scruggs pegs to play a familiar melody.

A few months later another banjo picker made a recording using Scruggs pegs. Haskel McCormick was the 16-year-old banjo picker on “Banjo Twist” by the McCormick brothers of Westmoreland, Tennessee. The track was on their first single, released in August 1954 by Hickory Records, Roy Acuff’s new Nashville label. McCormick, who would go on fill in for the hospitalized Earl with Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys a few times in 1956, incorporated portions of the hooks from both of Scruggs’ hits, in this, the first of three pieces he recorded that used the pegs. Here’s a brief bio of McCormick by NCTV, which opens with “Banjo Twist:”

Columbia recognized the popularity of Scruggs’ instrumentals that fall by reissuing four of them, including all three Scruggs peg-hook tunes, in their “Hall of Fame” series. While young banjo pickers like McCormick were writing new tunes with his pegs, Earl now took another direction, using one of them in his breaks for Lester’s song, “Till the End of the World Rolls Around.” Columbia released it in December 1954. 

By then Allen Shelton, now in the Raleigh-based band of Hack Johnson and his Tennesseans, had elaborated on the idea of playing “Home Sweet Home” with Scruggs pegs. Early in 1955 Shelton recorded a version of “Home Sweet Home” with Johnson that included a vocal trio on the chorus. Their Colonial single was a regional hit. 

This prompted Reno & Smiley, who recorded for King (a widely distributed independent label) to make a cover. Reno, traveling through North Carolina, heard the Johnson single and called King owner Syd Nathan to tell him about it. Nathan ordered him to get their band into the studio right away and record it. He couldn’t get in touch with his band members… 

…so I went to the studio in Charlotte and cut it by myself. I dubbed in three vocal parts and banjo, guitar, and bass. It took me most of the night and I don’t want to cut any more like that! 

The recording was a bigger hit than Johnson’s, and helped Reno & Smiley, one of the most influential early bluegrass bands — but until that point solely a recording act — launch their touring career.

Although Hubert Davis was first to record “Home Sweet Home” (as “There’s No Place Like Home”) with the pegs, it and the other instrumental he recorded with Jim Eanes didn’t get released until June 1955, after the Reno & Smiley version. By then, Shelton and Johnson had released “Swanee River,” another old familiar song with the same juxtaposition of pegs and vocal trio. Another similar piece, “Old Kentucky Home,” appeared soon after under a new band name. Hack Johnson was gone; now, with the same sound on the same label, they were The Farmhands. 

In the fall of 1955, Earl Scruggs recorded his fourth and last instrumental with a peg hook. In it he reset his peg for the second-string so that it moved up to C from B. His hook riff went through two chords instead of one. “Randy Lynn Rag,” celebrating the birth of his son, was released in February 1956. 

By now the idea of using the pegs to play old familiar pieces had caught on. Early in 1956 Sonny Osborne recorded four tunes using the pegs for Gateway, the Cincinnati label he’d been with since 1952: “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane,” “Jesse James,” “Swanee River,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” Accompanying him in the studio were Red Allen, guitar; Bobby Osborne, mandolin and fiddle; Art Stamper, fiddle; and Les Bodine, bass. These were the last recordings made under Sonny’s name, done just a few months before the first MGM sessions by the Osborne Brothers and Red Allen.

In May Columbia released Flatt & Scruggs’ new gospel single. Earl used the pegs to play his part of the melody in the breaks to the quartet “Joy Bells.” 

It was getting radio play that summer when a letter came to Mike Seeger from Moe Asch, owner of New York’s Folkways Records, asking him “to produce an LP of Scruggs-style banjo playing.” Seeger was certain his older half-brother, Folkways star and folk banjo guru Pete Seeger, “was the reason that Moe wrote me.” 

Living in the Washington-Baltimore area, Mike Seeger had been taping bluegrass shows at local country music parks. “Most bluegrass players were establishing new songs and sounds and so didn’t record the old-time tunes that they played on shows,” he said. Seeger wanted to demonstrate “the connection of the new style to the older music” so he focused on the old-time repertoire for the album. 

He started recording that fall of 1956, with the help of local bluegrass musician and collector Pete Kuykendall. They began after a Monroe show at New River Ranch in Rising Sun, Maryland, where Blue Grass Boy Joe Stuart lingered backstage to play his banjo setting of an old-time fiddle tune for Seeger’s portable tape recorder. Subsequently, eight other DC region banjoists, most of them young, were recorded. A trip south captured pioneers from western North Carolina, including Earl’s older brother Junie. Earl was not on the album. Finally, one picker from New York City’s Washington Square bluegrass scene was recorded. 

Seeger’s friend Ralph Rinzler, living in New York at the time, wrote the album notes. Here for the first time the word “bluegrass” was used in print to describe and explain the music. American Banjo Three-Finger and Scruggs Style, the first bluegrass LP, had a total of 31 tracks by fifteen banjoists. Scruggs pegs are heard on two cuts. 

On side B, band 3, Smiley Hobbs, a North Carolinian virtuoso living in northern Virginia, used the pegs to play the melody of the old folksong “Rosewood Casket” in a vocal-instrumental combination similar to Shelton’s.

The very last track on side B featured the Washington Square picker, seventeen-year-old New Yorker Eric Weissberg. Backed by Seeger on guitar and Rinzler on mandolin, he played a two-song medley, combining the tunes of the traditional ballad “Jesse James” and folk revival star Woody Guthrie’s popular composition “Hard Ain’t It Hard.” He used the pegs on the latter piece, which the Weavers, the most popular folk revival group at the time, had recently popularized. Weissberg’s mix of traditional and folk revival repertoire was a harbinger. 

In the next Bluegrass Memoir, more on Eric Weissberg.


Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

First Generation: Meet the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s Earliest Inductees

Though it’s not that hard to find some who will argue the point, bluegrass is widely held to have originated when banjo phenom Earl Scruggs joined Grand Ole Opry star Bill Monroe’s band in early December, 1945. Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys — the possessive wasn’t just there for show — were already among the anchors of the radio show’s cast, but contemporary accounts (and a handful of bootleg recordings) make clear that, to the ears of an almost instantly enraptured audience, Scruggs’ rapid-fire banjo playing elevated the group’s sound to a new level.

Almost instantly, groups sprang up — or reoriented themselves — in pursuit of the new sound, and although banjo players and fiddlers were the most obvious converts, the truth is that virtually all of the intricacies the band brought to their sound were soon emulated. By the time Scruggs and guitarist/lead singer Lester Flatt left the Blue Grass Boys at the beginning of 1948, the quintet’s live performances and a handful of recordings had already inspired some notable followers, who, out of artistic desire and commercial necessity, quickly busied themselves in developing their own distinctive takes on the sound of the “original bluegrass band.”

As we near the 75th anniversary of this foundational origin story, BGS will be looking back across the sweep of those years — and first up, of course, a clutch of true pioneers that share a common accomplishment: they are the acts honored by induction into the IBMA’s Hall of Fame in its first five years and their plaques proudly hang at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.


Bill Monroe (inducted 1991)

A complex personality with a skill set that included equal measures of innovation and synthesis, the mandolin-playing Monroe (b. 1911) moved from a mid-1930s duo with his brother to assembling a hot string band during World War II to fronting that original bluegrass band — an achievement which earned him his “Father of Bluegrass” title. Though it’s easy to discern the elements he brought together in that music — old fiddle tunes; Scotch-Irish ballads; African-American blues, jazz and gospel; western swing and more — his creativity extended beyond simply stirring them together and kept him a central figure from its inception until his death in 1996.

Indeed, while his early classics are essential to the bluegrass canon, even his late-life instrumental compositions have enjoyed a growing influence among today’s hottest young players. In fact, he collected his first Grammy for 1988’s “Southern Flavor.” Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, and as the composer of “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” he joined the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 1993, and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence in 1997.

Representative tracks: “Blue Yodel No. 4,“I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky,” “Lord Protect My Soul,” “Midnight on the Stormy Deep,” “Southern Flavor”


Earl Scruggs (inducted 1991)

Though he wasn’t yet 22 years old when he joined Monroe’s band at the end of 1945, Earl Scruggs (b. 1924) was ready to step into the spotlight, and, with the exception of a stretch of ill health in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, he never relinquished it until his death in 2012. Unlike many instrumentalists who change their approach according to musical context, Scruggs believed that his picking style — built around right-hand patterns called “rolls” — could fit anywhere, and after his groundbreaking years with Monroe and then Lester Flatt, his career seemed devoted to proving the point.

Having created much of the musical vocabulary for bluegrass banjo picking, he moved on to playing with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue, a country-rock-bluegrass fusion band that was arguably more successful — at least in commercial terms — than Flatt & Scruggs had ever been. In the 21st century, Scruggs championed a broad variety of younger musicians while continuing to play those same sweet rolls he’d created as a young man. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2008.

Representative tracks: “Blue Ridge Cabin Home” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Foggy Mountain Chimes” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Travelin’ Prayer” (Earl Scruggs Revue), “The Engineers Don’t Wave From the Trains Anymore” (with Tom T. Hall), “The Angels” (with Melissa Etheridge)


Lester Flatt (inducted 1991)

With an expressive, emotive voice and an impressive array of demeanors that ranged from dry and sly to devout and down-home, rhythm guitarist Lester Flatt (b. 1914) was the perfect musical complement to Earl Scruggs, and their 1948-1969 output was at least as influential as Monroe’s. Flatt & Scruggs won a 1968 Grammy for their classic recording of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

But where Scruggs was not only interested in playing with his sons, but also interested in putting his banjo into a wider range of contexts, Flatt preferred sticking to the country side of bluegrass. In the aftermath of their breakup, Flatt’s drawl deepened and slowed as he presided over a series of gifted lineups that included peers like Josh Graves and Vassar Clements, alongside young up-and-comers from banjoist Kenny Ingram to a teenaged Marty Stuart. Flatt & Scruggs were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.

Representative tracks: “I’ll Never Love Another” (Flatt & Scruggs), “I’ll Go Stepping Too” (Flatt & Scruggs), “On My Mind” (Flatt & Scruggs), “You Are My Flower” (Flatt & Scruggs), “Gonna Have Myself a Ball”


The Stanley Brothers (inducted 1992)

The career of Ralph Stanley (b. 1927) and Carter Stanley (b.1925) illustrates both the profound impact that the original bluegrass band had on their peers, as well as the complementary artistic and commercial drives that impelled those successors to create their own unique style. In their first recordings, made while Flatt and Scruggs were still Blue Grass Boys, you can hear the Virginia-born Stanley brothers revamp their old-time string band approach into an approximation of the pioneers’ sound, yet within a matter of months, they had found a compelling variant.

The Stanley sound was built in part around Ralph’s stolid but driving banjo and soulful tenor singing, but even more around Carter’s mournful lead vocals and powerful songs. Over the years, while they moved from the Nashville-based Columbia and Mercury labels to scrappy (and multi-racial) Cincinnati indie, King, their sound became even more recognizable, as owner Syd Nathan hectored them into de-emphasizing the fiddle and leaning more into the innovative work of flatpicking lead guitarists like George Shuffler. The brothers’ partnership came to an end in late 1966 with the early, alcohol-related death of Carter; Ralph would continue on with his own twist on the Stanley Brothers’ sound until his death in 2016.

Representative tracks: “The Lonesome River,” “Our Last Goodbye,” “Let Me Walk, Lord, By Your Side,” “I’ll Just Go Away,” “Pig in a Pen”


Reno & Smiley (inducted 1992)

The first banjo player to follow Scruggs, albeit briefly, in the Blue Grass Boys, Don Reno (b. 1926) deliberately sought to create a distinct and instantly recognizable style of his own on the instrument. By the time his partnership with singer-guitarist Red Smiley (b. 1925) had settled into regular recording for King Records in the early 1950s, he had succeeded completely, and for good measure had done the same with flatpicked guitar solos, too. As Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs once put it, Reno & Smiley were a country band with a banjo instead of a steel guitar.

Though Reno could and sometimes would blister a banjo solo, many of the band’s signature numbers were heart songs, country shuffles, earnest gospel outings and more, including occasional flashes of rockabilly and jazz. Reno wrote many of them, sang tenor and occasional leads, and shared the instrumental limelight with their steady fiddler, Mack Magaha, and occasionally with one or another mandolin player, including his son, Ronnie. The partners split for a few years in the mid-‘60s, then reunited for a brief period before Smiley’s death in 1972. Reno continued to record and perform with partners ranging from Bill Harrell to his sons until he passed away in 1984.

Representative tracks: “I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap,” “I Know You’re Married,” “Little Rock Getaway,” “Please Remember That I Love You,” “Just About Then”


Jim & Jesse (inducted 1993)

Though Jim McReynolds (b. 1927) and Jesse McReynolds (b. 1929) were born just a few dozen miles from the Stanley Brothers, the music of Jim & Jesse could hardly have been a more different kind of bluegrass. The duo’s singing was smooth and refined — especially guitarist Jim’s silvery tenor — while the instrumental sound was driven by Jesse’s innovative mandolin cross-picking and their overall approach by the latter’s eclectic tastes and influences (he appeared, for instance, on The Doors’ 1969 album, The Soft Parade).

The brothers were comfortable in reaching for a more countrified sound, helped by banjo players like Allen Shelton and Carl Jackson, who were adept at playing radio-friendly licks on a dobro-banjo as well as ‘grassier fare when that was called for. Smart businessmen as well, the duo were among the first to appear on television in the early 1950s, recorded an entire album of Chuck Berry songs in the mid-1960s, started their own label in the early 1970s, and remained a popular fixture on the Grand Ole Opry until Jim’s death on the last day of 2002. As of this writing, Jesse McReynolds continues to perform — and to innovate, too, with releases like a 2010 Songs of the Grateful Dead collection.

Representative tracks: “Pardon Me,” “Are You Missing Me,” “She Left Me Standing on the Mountain,” “Cotton Mill Man,” “Memphis”


Mac Wiseman (inducted 1993)

Nicknamed “The Voice With a Heart,” Virginia’s Mac Wiseman (b. 1925) was a founding member of Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys in 1948, but soon left to join Monroe (and Don Reno) in the Blue Grass Boys. By the early 1950s, he’d started his own career, recording for Gallatin, Tennessee’s Dot Records — and then going to work for the label. A consummate professional, he also served as a musicians’ union official for a time, and was a founding member of the Country Music Association. He frequently recorded material other than bluegrass, especially when rock ’n’ roll and the pop-country Nashville sound beckoned in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and throughout his career, he was never afraid to use a variety of instruments besides the archetypal bluegrass ones.

Still, as a performer, bluegrass was his bread and butter from the mid-1960s on, and rather than carry a band, he would recruit players from other acts (and occasionally skilled amateurs, too) and lead them on stage with a heavy guitar strum and a quick “watch me, boys!” Wiseman’s songbook included old folk numbers, songs he heard on the radio as a polio-stricken child, big band tunes, Music Row compositions and much more. In later years, he recorded several memorable projects that highlighted songs his mother had taught him and songs that told his life story, before his death in 2019.

Representative tracks: “I Still Write Your Name in the Sand,” “I Wonder How the Old Folks Are at Home,” “Mother Knows Best,” “My Little Home in Tennessee,” “’Tis Sweet to Be Remembered”


The Osborne Brothers (inducted 1994)

Bobby Osborne (b. 1931) and Sonny Osborne (b. 1937) were among the first of what might be called “semi-second generation” bluegrass artists; unlike those who preceded them in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, neither had performed professionally before 1950. By 1954, though, they’d hooked up with Jimmy Martin for a memorable set of recordings, and 1956 found them signed on to MGM on their own. Together with singer-guitarist Red Allen, the Brothers — Bobby singing lead and playing mandolin, Sonny singing baritone and playing banjo — had come up with an inventive new vocal arrangement that put the spotlight pretty much on them alone.

Lest that sound too cold, it should be noted that they deserved it, for not only was Bobby a formidable lead singer and Sonny brilliant in the support role, but their fearless, try-anything (the two recorded separately with avant-garde jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton in the mid-’60s) instrumental skills were profoundly original. The Brothers joined the Grand Ole Opry and signed with Decca Records in 1964, and spent the next decade fusing bluegrass and country in a way that eventually earned them a CMA Vocal Group award. Irascible, opinionated, and both artistically and commercially successful, the Osborne Brothers were at the forefront of the music until Sonny’s 2005 retirement — and while Bobby continues to perform to this day, the influence of their duo continues to grow, too.

Representative tracks: “Once More,” “The Cuckoo Bird,” “Tennessee Hound Dog,” “Pathway of Teardrops,” “Sweethearts Again”


Jimmy Martin (inducted 1995)

East Tennessee native Jimmy Martin (b. 1927) hungered to perform with Bill Monroe as a youngster, then got his chance in 1949 when Mac Wiseman quit the Blue Grass Boys. As lead vocalist and guitarist, he helped to make some of Monroe’s most memorable recordings, then partnered in various settings with Bobby and Sonny Osborne before taking the helm of his Sunny Mountain Boys in the mid-1950s. A brash, colorful guy who could boast with the best and then back it up, Martin served in the cast of the Louisiana Hayride (alongside Elvis) and the Wheeling (W.V.) Jamboree before a growing bluegrass festival circuit threw him a lifeline in the absence of a Grand Ole Opry membership.

Among early Hall of Fame inductees, he may be considered more influential than most of his peers. Service in his Sunny Mountain Boys constituted the training ground for several generations of musicians, from banjo man J.D. Crowe to newgrass pioneer Alan Munde to Americana favorite Greg Garing — and his appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken was legendary. Martin was an unstoppable force of nature who knew exactly what he wanted from a musician, yet was unable to clearly explain it. Still, he did well enough that his records are instantly recognizable, even when you’ve never heard them before.

Representative tracks: “That’s How I Can Count on You” (with the Osborne Brothers), “Rock Hearts,” “You Don’t Know My Mind,” “Tennessee,” “Freeborn Man”


Pictured above, first row (L to R): Bill Monroe, The Osborne Brothers, Mac Wiseman, Jim & Jesse; Second row: Reno & Smiley, The Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Flatt & Scruggs

Bluegrass Memoirs: Scruggs Pegs & Earl’s Hooks

Let’s begin with a 45 RPM record I played banjo on. 

In July 1964, I was hired by the Rick Sutherlin Orchestra to play banjo for one night at the Monroe County Fair in Bloomington, Indiana. They needed a banjo player, because they were going to back up the fair’s featured music that night, the famous barbershop quartet, The Buffalo Bills

The Rick Sutherlin Orchestra was a big band based in Bloomington. Its leader Sutherlin, from a local family, was not a great musician. I remember him at the fair waving his baton at the front of the stage while one of the sidemen did the countdowns before each tune. I’m pretty certain I got the gig because Tom Hensley, who’d played bass in our bluegrass band, the Pigeon Hill Boys, played piano for the orchestra. They needed a banjo; he suggested my name. Hensley, like most of the other members of the big band, was at the Indiana University School of Music. He recently retired after over 40 years as Neil Diamond’s pianist.

A banjo solo was needed for the show, so one of the other orchestra members, trombonist Gary Potter, came to consult with me. Potter and I had been classmates at Oberlin College, playing in Dick Sudhalter’s jazz band in 1960. The following year we had roomed in the same boarding house, and he’d played bass with our campus bluegrass band, The Plum Creek Boys. Now he was at the start of a long career teaching music, principally at IU’s Jacobs School of Music. 

We decided on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice,” a contemporary folk hit. I’d been playing it with David Satterfield in our Bloomington bluegrass band. Dave, an IU Grad student from Columbus, Indiana, had lived in Greenwich Village a few years before and done some singing with Dylan at that time. This song was in his repertoire.

I loaned Gary a copy of Sing Out! that had Dylan’s words and music so he could work on the arrangement. At this point he suggested inserting the sound of the Scruggs pegs, the musical hook in Flatt & Scruggs’ “Flint Hill Special.” Scruggs had added two additional tuning pegs to his banjo. They had cams which pushed on the second and third strings, enabling him to raise and lower the pitch of each string while it was being plucked. That created a slurred note sound resembling that of a slide guitar or a pedal steel.

Gary had heard that sound when we were at Oberlin and thought its riff with the strings being tuned down and back up would make a nice introduction for my banjo part. He enjoyed the challenge of arranging the sound of the pegs for the orchestra.

The performance at the fair went over well, and soon after that someone — maybe Sutherlin? — suggested we try doing a banjo + big band LP. Thus the Delmarti 45, intended as a demo, was born. The recording was made, as the label indicates, by Don Sheets. Sheets had a recording studio in Brown County on Highway 135 halfway between Bean Blossom and Nashville. He did custom recording work — high school bands, choirs, that sort of stuff — and specialized in jingles. I worked for him there occasionally. A gold record for one of his jingles hung on the studio wall.

The recording was made on the IU Bloomington campus in August 1964, at the Indiana Memorial Union building’s Alumni Hall. The band was on the hall’s stage. Sheets set up his recording equipment on the floor in front of the stage. What I recall most vividly about the recording session is how solid the rhythm section was. “The Marti Mae Singers” was Don’s wife Marti, who overdubbed the harmony voices in his studio afterward.

The record was published in the fall of 1964. Our banjo + big band idea didn’t find any takers at record companies. At the time, bluegrass banjo crossover projects like this one were already up and running, and the heyday for Scruggs pegs had passed.

Earl Scruggs invented his pegs in 1952 after recording “Earl’s Breakdown,” an instrumental that incorporated as its hook a musical trick he’d been playing since boyhood — making a slur by plucking the second string (a B note), tuning it down while still ringing to an A, and then quickly back up to B, right in the middle of an instrumental break. A quick twist! He and Lester recorded it in October 1951. 

It was released at the end of the year on a Columbia single, the B side of “‘Tis Sweet To Be Remembered,” the first Flatt & Scruggs title to make the Billboard charts. All winter long, Columbia advertised the single as a best-seller. The band, then based in Raleigh, was playing it on the radio and the road daily. 

The tedium of having to retune the string by ear every time he played it prompted Earl to invent a labor-saving device. He installed a tuning peg with an adjustable cam on it in the banjo’s peghead between the first and the second string. Turning the peg up made the cam stretch the second string up to B. Turning it down loosened it to A. That enabled him to play these peg hooks accurately every time.

At the same time as he installed the new tuning peg he placed an identical one between the third and the fourth string so that the third string could be moved down from a G to F# and back.

Earl did this because moving the second and third strings down is a natural part of tuning the banjo from an open G chord (the default, for Scruggs-style) to a D chord. This boyhood musical trick came from something he did whenever he played at a dance — change tunings. Certain dance pieces were in G, the most frequently used tuning. Others were in C or D, each with its own tuning. Scruggs used all three throughout his musical life.

In the spring of 1952 Earl could use his new tuners not only for “Earl’s Breakdown,” but also to move quickly from G to D in order to play “Reuben,” the old-time tune that had launched him as a three-finger picker, which he often picked with the band. 

Tablature for “Flint Hill Special” from Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo, p. 103

That fall, just after moving to Knoxville, they recorded “Flint Hill Special,” Earl’s newest composition. It used his new pegs for the tune’s hook.  This riff came at the start of the recording and was repeated at the end of each banjo chorus. That’s what Gary Potter incorporated into his charts for our version of “Don’t Think Twice.”

Released within weeks as the B side of “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke,” “Flint Hill Special” was advertised by Columbia as a best-seller all spring of 1953. It got a lot of radio play. 

At the end of August, not long after Lester and Earl started broadcasting for Martha White Flour in Nashville, they recorded another new peg hook instrumental, “Foggy Mountain Chimes.” In the second half of each chorus Earl tuned both strings down, changing the banjo’s open chord to a D, then played harmonics — “chimes” — in that key before tuning back up to G. 

“Foggy Mountain Chimes” was released in November 1953. The following month Decca released a single recorded in Nashville by the Shenandoah Valley Boys. On one side was “Plunkin’ Rag,” a new banjo instrumental with yet another Scruggs peg hook. 

With the pegs as with every other aspect of his music, Earl Scruggs was being listened to in Nashville and copied by young banjo players everywhere. “Plunkin’ Rag” was just the start. More about that next time!


Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg

Bluegrass Memoirs: Mayne Smith & Alice Gerrard

Tom Power’s recent Toy Heart episode with Alice Gerrard, whom I first knew as Alice Foster, reminded me of a 1959 visit several of us Oberlin College folkies made to Antioch College. In 2009, doing research on my early bluegrass experiences, I sent my friend Mayne Smith an email asking about his experiences when he met Alice and her late husband Jeremy Foster during that visit. 

Mayne and I are the same age and have known each other since 1953. We got into folk music as teens in Berkeley, California, and discovered bluegrass together from 1957 to 1959 while in Oberlin, Ohio. We first heard it on records and radio, and at this time had seen it live only once, when we met banjoists Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman at a 1958 spring vacation homecoming party in New York City. We had begun trying to play bluegrass with a circle of Oberlin classmates, folk music enthusiasts learning new music and working on new instruments. 

In the introduction to my memoir, Bluegrass Generation, I mention our trips to Antioch as undergrads, where we met the Fosters. 

Antioch was, like Oberlin, a liberal arts college that drew students from all over the country and beyond. At the time, its co-op system, which placed students in jobs every second semester or so, was thought to be radical. Unlike Oberlin, which still drew on a pious abolitionist point of view about many things, it tended to be a more socially relaxed place. A Fun Place to Party. 

Mayne Smith, Kaz Inaba, and Neil Rosenberg after a morning of jamming at the Hotel New Hankyu in Osaka, Japan. April 31, 1991.

Mayne was the first of our Oberlin bluegrass circle to meet the Fosters during one of these trips. This music was still a new and distant thing to us; we didn’t own tape recorders. In my email I asked Mayne: 

What memories do you have of visiting Antioch and meeting Alice and Jeremy? I went there several times and recall you being there, but don’t have any documents like tapes or photos that include you. Any recollections, however hazy, would be welcome. I remember that you had some kind of document from the Fosters giving you honorary membership in [their band] the Green County Stump Jumpers — do you still have that, was it dated? 

Mayne answered the next day: 

Neil, I have (for me) unusually vivid memories of our first visit to Antioch and hanging out at the Fosters’ place because it was there that I contracted the Stanley Brothers virus. I think it must have been in the spring of 1959 because I had already heard Flatt & Scruggs and understood that this was called bluegrass music. 

But first, Jeremy’s hand-drawn certificate (on a 4×6 card) is undated, but it reads: 

I also vaguely remember showing Marge [Ostrow] (later married to Mike Seeger for a while) how I played Carter Family style guitar. I think I got it from Dave Fredrickson — using the thumb to pick melody, then the index finger brushing down/up. I heard later that Mike was impressed by the fact that Marge had adopted this approach, and asked her where she learned it. 

But about the Stanley Brothers. I recall a thinly carpeted living room with expansive white bookshelves along the wall opposite the windows. At some point, in an afternoon I think, Jeremy put on a tape of the Stanley Brothers in live performance — my gut tells me it was one of the ones Mike Seeger had recorded at New River Ranch in like 1957. As soon as I heard that totally live, undoctored sound I was captivated, and I believe I sat and lay on that hard floor listening to live Stanley Brothers shows (several sets, at least) for hours. My mind was blown. Knowing it was totally live and without studio gimmicks and buried background effects, it came home to me how the fluctuating balance of instruments and voices was accomplished by movement in relation to the microphone and each other, how at times there were lovely breathing spaces in the sound while people shifted from instrumental breaks to solo vocals to harmony vocals. How nobody was using a lot of physical effort to project the sound, yet it penetrated, flowed, darted ahead, waxed and waned like the mating dance of a single complex organism — and how comfortable and familiar the musicians were with what they were singing and playing. 

I was learning not only about how bluegrass fits together, but also about what a band can be like when it’s been playing constantly together, day in and day out, for weeks — for years. 

I don’t believe I’ve ever had a more intense listening and learning experience, nor one that had such a profound effect on my life. 

I should also mention that this was partly possible because I could tell that [Jeremy] and Alice understood what I was going through and supported me by staying out of the way. I felt toward them the way a bridegroom feels about the best man and maid of honor: I could give myself over to the intensity of the music in a nurturing environment. (In retrospect, it was kind of like having a trusted support team when you first get stoned on something very strong.) 

I will always be grateful to them both. 

If you were around when this happened, I don’t remember it. I just blanked on everything else but those sounds. 

I wasn’t at the Fosters when this happened, which was not in the spring of 1959 as Mayne recalled, but a few months earlier, during the January break between semesters. While he visited them, I was off jamming with Guy Carawan, who’d given a concert at Antioch that weekend. I didn’t meet Alice and Jeremy until they brought the Green County Stump Jumpers to an Oberlin Hootenanny a year later. 

In May 1959, our old Berkeley folk scene friend Sandy Paton (co-founder of Folk Legacy records) was the headliner at the annual Oberlin Folk Festival. By then our circle had become The Lorain County String Band. Sandy heard our festival set and said he knew a British folk record company producer who was looking for American bluegrass and old-timey. He suggested we make a demo he could send to his friend. We cut it at the student radio station, but it was never sent. 

That summer, back home in Berkeley, we started The Redwood Canyon Ramblers, Northern California’s first bluegrass band. The story of that band, and of Mayne’s subsequent career as a singer/songwriter and steel guitarist with continuing excursions into bluegrass, is told well at Mayne’s website.

But it does not include an important detail — his groundbreaking work as a scholar. His Master’s Thesis, “Bluegrass Music and Musicians” (Indiana U., 1964) and the article he developed from it, “An Introduction to Bluegrass” (Journal of American Folklore, 1965) opened the door to the serious study of this music. His transcendent aural immersion at the Fosters was the seed that gave him the vision to accomplish this work. I and the many who have followed are indebted to Mayne Smith for blazing the trail.


Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg
Photo of Mayne Smith, Kaz Inaba, and Neil Rosenberg: Ed Neff

MIXTAPE: High Fidelity’s Traveling Music

While High Fidelity is known for representing a specific niche in the bluegrass music landscape from the 1950s and early ‘60s, each member brings a diverse palate of musical tastes and styles. This playlist is a fine example of some of the diverse listening one might hear on our travels. Some of us remember making mixtapes of our favorite songs and tunes in the days of the cassette. Well, our van still has a cassette player in it! I hope you’ll enjoy listening to some of the music that inspires us, and maybe I should run off a tape of this for our next trip! — Jeremy Stephens, High Fidelity

Flatt & Scruggs – “Earl’s Breakdown”

This is probably the first song that really lit a fire under me to love and play bluegrass music. I first heard it on a red 8-track tape. I was absolutely drawn to Earl’s banjo playing and the famous section of the song where he tunes the second string down a whole step and then brings it right back up. Honestly though, the part of the tune that tore me up and still tears me up is Everett Lilly’s mandolin break. When I first heard that break, I thought it was the most incredible thing ever. Still is the best 15 seconds of mandolin playing on record. — Kurt Stephenson

Don Reno – “Coffee Cup”

I love “Coffee Cup,” because it showcases Don Reno’s banjo playing and creativity to the max. Though Reno didn’t write the song, he had a masterful arrangement of it. I believe it demonstrates nearly every signature technique that is unique to Don Reno. Each solo (they’re all banjo solos) is an adventure, and a fun one at that! — KS

Lonesome River Band – “Say I Do”

I always credit Lonesome River Band with sparking my interest in contemporary bluegrass sounds. My first LRB album was One Step Forward and my favorite song on the album is “Say I Do.” I love the groove, the harmonies, the chord structure, and especially the musical groove. Kenny Smith plays an incredible and beautiful guitar solo, which is followed by a banjo solo from Sammy Shelor. That particular banjo solo taught me so much about dynamics; especially in regards to coming out of a solo and leading in to the vocal. — KS

Reno & Smiley – “Country Boy Rock ‘N Roll”

I’m a country boy and I like to rock and roll, so this song fits. I remember picking up the album that included this song at a flea market when I was about 12 or 13, and it was my very first introduction to Reno & Smiley. — Daniel Amick

Tim O’Brien – “Wind”

I like this song because it’s a good song. It speaks to my soul. We have wind at my house. — DA

Punch Brothers – “Boll Weevil”

As a farmer sometimes I deal with crop failure, bugs, and drought. The goal is of course to problem solve and see beyond the failures to the success just on the other side, but seeing this as a story from the bug’s perspective is pretty interesting. — DA

Jim & Jesse – “Did You Ever Go Sailing”

The In the Tradition album by Jim & Jesse is the first album I remember consciously listening to, the first instance I remember understanding what an album was and what it meant to be an artist. When I would go to 3-year-old preschool, I listened to this on cassette continually and just wore the tape out. My first favorite song was this one. I still love everything about that album and this song! Glen Duncan’s fiddling, Allen Shelton’s banjo playing, and of course Jesse’s mandolin playing are just the cream of the crop, with the added bonus of Roy Huskey Jr. on upright bass. Jim is featured here singing lead on the verses and jumping to harmony on the choruses, making for an all-around awesome arrangement! — Corrina Rose Logston

Red Smiley & the Bluegrass Cut-Ups – “It’s Raining Here This Morning”

Tater Tate’s fiddling has been a huge influence on me, and it’s something I go back to over and over again for inspiration. This particular cut features Tater front and center just wearing it out! I love a song in the key of F like this, and this cut is just exceptional. Red Smiley’s flawless lead singing is like golden drops of honey. Billy Edwards’s playing out of open F on the banjo is the epitome of my happy place. It just doesn’t get much better than this for me! — CRL

Sarah Siskind – “Lone Tree”

It might surprise fans of High Fidelity that most of my “newer” music listening is outside the realm of traditional bluegrass. In fact, outside of the High Fidelity setting, my own solo artistry and songwriting is like a musical amalgam drawn from many diverse sources throughout my life. I love Sarah Siskind’s artistry and draw so much inspiration from her music. It’s hard to pick favorites but this particular song is pretty high up on the list for me! And, fun fact, Jeremy Stephens was staying with Sarah’s mom and dad the year that Jeremy and I met each other at SPBGMA in 2009! — CRL

Homer & Jethro – “Tennessee, Tennessee”

I knew I wanted to include a Homer & Jethro number, but I didn’t know just which one. I’ve always admired their ability to integrate belly laugh-inducing lyrics to some serious mandolin precision. “Tennessee, Tennessee” is one that I’ve always wanted me and Corrina to cover. That last verse makes me lol every time. — Vickie Vaughn

Tim O’Brien & Darrell Scott – “Walk Beside Me”

This is the opening song to my desert island record. I just need one and this record, Real Time, is IT. That GROOVE, though. I’ve listened to this song at least a hundred times and the repeating mandolin hook paired with the mandola toward the end of it makes me feel like I. CAN. DO. ANYTHING. Thanks for that confidence, Tim & Darrell. — VV

Jim Oblon (with Larry Goldings & Jim Keltner) – “Copperhead”

I’ve known Jim for a while. I met him here in Nashville before I even knew what he was musically capable of. Friends later told me that he was Paul Simon’s drummer. Now we’re old friends and I try to be cool when I see him now and again at the gym and I try to refrain from nerding out over yet another musical discovery I had while listening to his records. Get a load of this RIFF on “Copperhead.” Not showcased on this recording is Jim’s incredible vocal prowess. Make sure you take time to find a song of his to hear that. You’re welcome. — VV

Kilby Snow – “Close By”

I’ve loved the autoharp since my Mamaw got me one for my sixth birthday from the secondhand store she worked at. I didn’t start playing it seriously until I saw my banjo mentor, Troy Brammer, playing autoharp when I was in my early teens. I’ve gone quite a few years without playing it seriously, but since we’ve all been shut in at home, I’ve been playing autoharp almost exclusively around the house for a couple months now. My favorite of all the autoharp players is Kilby Snow from Grayson County, Virginia. He played autoharp left-handed upside down, and did these open-bar “drag” notes to make it sound like the roll on a five-string banjo. This is a great Bill Monroe number played by Kilby on the harp, and it’s one I’ve found myself playing quite a bit lately. I learned to play his style right handed from his son Jim when I visited him in Oxford, Pennsylvania, in 2006. — JS

United Sacred Harp Convention – “Sherburne 186”

I first heard sacred harp shape-note singing on a 78 RPM record at Kinney Rorrer’s home. Kinney is a serious record collector and has been a mentor to me in the history of old time music. After first hearing the singing on that 78, I was hooked, and I couldn’t get enough of Sacred Harp. I learned to read and sing the shape notes and listened to many recordings of Sacred Harp conventions. Of all my listening, this recording of this tune has stood out to me, and I wanted to include it here. Hope y’all like it! — JS

Reno & Smiley and the Tennessee Cut-Ups – “Mountain Church”

There is no set of recordings that I have returned to over and over for more than 20 years, except for Reno & Smiley’s 1953 and early 1954 recordings. The tone, feel, playing, and singing of these 24 sides sum up everything that I really love about Reno & Smiley’s corner of bluegrass music. This era of their work has greatly informed what I bring to the table stylistically with High Fidelity. “Mountain Church” is one of my favorites of Reno & Smiley and we perform it occasionally in High Fidelity. — JS


Photo credit: Amy Richmond

Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum: Take a Virtual Tour With New Videos

A visit to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum will enlighten and entertain any fan of acoustic music. While a road trip to Owensboro, Kentucky, will inevitably have to wait, you can enjoy these new videos with museum executive director Chris Joslin, who gives a close-up look at the history of bluegrass, as well as insight about what you’ve gotta have to play bluegrass.

From the early sources to contemporary interpretations, the museum exhibits tell the story of bluegrass music via documentary-style films, artifacts, images, and hands-on experiences with bluegrass instruments. Joslin takes virtual visitors through each area commenting on the exhibits and concluding each area with a live performance of a song that was significant to that specific era.

“Until you can travel to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum, we will bring it to you,” Joslin says. “The virtual tour is a great introduction, but I can’t wait for you to see the Hall of Fame in person and to experience the energy around the music firsthand. What Bill Monroe created is now enjoyed around the world, and Owensboro, Kentucky, is at the headwaters of this uniquely American genre of music.”

Curious about how bluegrass got its name? Wondering why bluegrass festivals became popular? Take a look and learn more about Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and so many others, with this guided tour through the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

Introduction & The Sources of Bluegrass Music


Dawn of the Bluegrass Era


Bluegrass Gets a Name


The Festival Era


Modern Era


Woodward Theatre & Audio/Video Production


Oral History & Hall of Fame Exhibit