It’s terrifying to imagine now that when I was 18 I got in a station wagon with six other teenagers and drove 12 hours from Toronto to Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to the Merle Watson Memorial Festival. Terrifying because I don’t think any of us had much driving experience, money or sense. I had a big crush on one of the other passengers and would have gotten into the car whichever festival it was going to, but now when I look at the lineup for that year (1994), I’m glad we made it. Over the weekend that crush turned into a romance that lasted for what amounts to a lifetime at age 18, so most of my memories are not of the performers I was listening to who came to dominate my ears for years to come. But the moon-eyed haze I was floating around in tied up my first experience of bluegrass with all the intensity and longing of love and the freedom and excitement of traveling.
I like that bluegrass means such different things to its adherents, but that they all feel it strongly. It can be an exercise in authenticity, an article of faith, a technical jungle gym and an emblem of a time and place in history. It’s a genre that’s small and quirky enough that some people feel they can inhabit, protect and partly own it. Now it’s so embedded in my musical history that I don’t know if I can speak about it intelligibly with anyone who doesn’t already love it as much as I do. Here are some of my favourite songs by some of the artists that were playing at the Merle Watson Memorial Festival in 1994. — Doug Paisley
Tony Rice more than anyone else is the reason I am a guitar player and a musician. His many layers of musicality and his broader interests from modern acoustic instrumental music to restoring Accutron watches to his appearance on stage to his insights and comments in interviews make him a fascinating character. I’m so grateful for his time on earth.
When I began to play bluegrass, the high-water mark of what a bluegrass group could be was for me the Seldom Scene. They were such an assemblage of distinct characters. John Starling and John Duffey are two of my favourite singers.
In my daily life I can connect to so much feeling in Iris DeMent’s music, but if I’m going through a hard time I think I’d approach it very carefully because it’s just so powerful.
Aside from all the great and probably familiar things we can say about Emmylou Harris, I love her forays into more traditional music — especially on “Roses in the Snow” with Tony Rice on guitar.
Once I had finally recovered from the New South lineup with Tony Rice, I then discovered that there was a whole other set of tunes with Keith Whitley on vocals, and my head just about exploded.
Such a beautiful singer. I heard from dobro player Don Rooke that Claire Lynch may be living up in our neck of the woods now. I hope I get a chance to see her play here.
Although I’ve listened to Doc Watson all along I never tried to emulate or learn from his guitar playing the way I did Tony Rice or Norman Blake. There’s something inscrutable and compelling about it for me, and I’d rather take in his music not as a guitar player, but purely as a listener.
Artist:Charlie Musselwhite Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee Song: “Rank Strangers” Album:Mississippi Son Release Date: June 3, 2022 Label: Alligator Records
In Their Words: “As a child growing up in Memphis, I was first attracted to the field holler blues I heard along Cypress Creek in my neighborhood. A few years later led me to the country blues players I heard on guitar in my neighborhood, in downtown Memphis and on Beale Street. And I haven’t stopped being attracted to this style of guitar some call country blues. When I was 13 my dad gave me his old Supertone guitar. I was already fooling around with playing blues on harmonica, but I loved the sound of acoustic blues guitar, too. I clearly remember sitting in my bedroom in my mom’s house and making an E chord on that guitar and then putting my little finger down to turn that E chord into an E7 chord. And when I played that chord with the blue note added and heard that for the first time, something inside me went ‘ahhhhhhhhhhh….’ That ol’ E7 chord grabbed me and I knew I had to have more of THAT!! …
“Besides blues, I’ve always been a fan of all music that seems to me to be ‘from the heart.’ For this reason I’ve long been a fan of The Stanley Brothers. Their version of ‘Rank Strangers’ resonated with me so much I felt like I had to play it for myself. I love the lyrics. I’ve Blues’d it up for y’all.” — Charlie Musselwhite (from the liner notes of Mississippi Son)
Billy Strings has had his foot on the gas since he was a teenager, bringing his prolific picking to hundreds of shows around the country each year and winning over a throng of devoted fans in the process. His bluegrass bona fides may be obvious from the outset — he’s quick to cite such greats as Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, and the Stanley Brothers as some of his first musical influences, and no honest spectator could deny his talent on the guitar and mandolin — but astute listeners will also note elements of rock, jam bands, and even heavy metal in his performances, especially as Strings bounds around the stage.
The Nashville-based, Michigan-raised musician’s latest album, Renewal, comes on the heels of an exceptional year: His Rounder Records debut, Home, won the 2020 Grammy award for Best Bluegrass Album. And even as much of the music industry was grounded from touring, his innovative approach to livestreams and digital performances moved the Pollstar Awards to dub him the Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic. But that breakthrough was more than a decade in the making, and the forces that shaped Strings as a prodigious young picker are still at work today, pushing him creatively in the studio and on stage as well as calming him at home between gigs. Here, in the second half of our BGSArtist of the Month interview, Strings tells us about his upbringing, his latest influences, and the way he unwinds between shows.
BGS: Tell me about where you grew up. How do you see its impact on your work today?
Billy Strings: I was born in Lansing, Michigan on October 3, which is my grandpa’s birthday. My mother, who lived in Kentucky at the time, had gone up to Lansing to visit her dad on his birthday, and that’s when I decided to show up. [Laughs] So that’s why I was named Billy as well, because that was my grandpa’s name — I was his little birthday gift.
We lived in Morehead, Kentucky, for a couple of years before coming back home to Michigan, where I really grew up. I grew up in a little town called Muir, population 600. My dad is an incredible guitar player, so he taught me how to play. He was always showing me music when I was a little kid: Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jimmy Martin, Larry Sparks, and stuff like that — a lot of good bluegrass. We’d hang out at this little campground and play music next to the river by the fire. That was my childhood, man, just sitting there picking by the river.
It was real good until I got to be a teenager and started to turn sour. I had to run off and figure out a new life. I took what my dad taught me when I was a little kid, and all of a sudden I realized that bluegrass is actually pretty sweet and people love this shit — that maybe I could do something with this; that it’s not just something that I do with my dad that I should be halfway embarrassed about.
Who are the artists that you feel really inspired by right now? And are those different than the ones that you feel like you were listening to a lot when you were a kid?
For the most part, it’s still Doc Watson — he’s the main nerve — and Bill Monroe, and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley and Carter Stanley, the Stanley Brothers. But I listen to a lot of different shit. I listen to death metal, and lately, I’ve been getting into this music from Mali that Béla Fleck was showing me — some really amazing stuff. And Memphis trap: I’ve been listening to Young Dolph a bunch. There’s just an energy to it. I grew up around crack houses. I’ve seen that shit that they’re rapping about. It just gets me hyped: He’s talking about coming out of nothing and becoming a self-made millionaire. I listen to it before the shows sometimes to get myself hyped up.
You played in rock bands in high school — groups with music that might not sound a lot like what you’re doing today. Is there any lesson or anything from that time that you feel like you still turn to or still apply to the music that you make?
Yeah, performing live. I never learned how to perform in a bluegrass band. I learned how to perform in a metal band. I learned music by playing bluegrass when I was a little kid, but by the time I was doing it on stage it was in a metal band — we were headbanging and running all over the place — and I still can’t help but get into the music like that. I can’t just stand there and play.
You have been in Nashville now for a little while. Has anything that has surprised you about it, good or bad?
I really love Nashville. A lot of your favorite musicians, that’s where they live. You’ll see your favorite singer in the grocery store. I get calls for sessions, and it’s from people who I grew up listening to and who I’ve idolized for my whole life. Like Béla Fleck’s record just came out, and I played a handful of songs on that. I was so honored to play with David Grisman, and Chris Thile, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, and Edgar Meyer — all these cats that are just… well, I don’t feel like I’m really in that league. It really was an honor. And there’ve been several things like that! I went from listening to these cats on a record to being on a first-name basis with them… texting and being friends. It’s a trip.
What’s one thing that’s brought you joy recently?
Fishing. I love bass fishing. I grew up doing that with my dad as well, but I didn’t do it for a long time because I was so busy. When the pandemic hit, I started fishing again. I go out there in rain or shine. I just like it for the solitude. Last night, I was in front of thousands of people, and to come home and go out on my boat and be alone in nature — to check out the blue herons and the fucking ospreys, eagles, fish, everything doing its thing — it’s brought me a lot of joy, brought me down to Earth. I put my boat in at 5 o’clock in the morning when the sun is just coming up. I like being out there alone at that time of day. It’s just good for my mind.
And yet it’s so clear from your performances that interacting with listeners gives you a certain joy, too. What are the forms of feedback that you value most from your audience when you’re playing live?
Sometimes when we finish a solo, everybody starts cheering real loud, the whole place gets real loud. That feels good. But sometimes I look out there and I look around and I see individual people and I literally play to them. Last night, we played in Montana and I was looking around and there was this one dude just standing there with his beer just completely still. I didn’t even know if he was enjoying it or not. So I just walked up to the front of the stage and stared directly at him and I just started playing right to him. [Laughs] So he started laughing, and then he took a drink of his beer and started bobbing his head a little bit. I think he just started getting into it by the end of the show.
I’ll look for things like that. The audience is really in control of how I’m feeling up there. Sometimes, when they’re just on fire, I can’t help but have a good time. They feed us the energy, and we give it back to them. It’s reciprocal.
Ah! There’s a chill in the air, color in the leaves, and a craving for the spookiest songs in bluegrass — it must be fall. Bluegrass, old-time, and country do unsettling music remarkably well, from ancient folk lyrics of love gone wrong to ghost stories to truly “WTF??” moments. If you’re a fan of pumpkins, hot cider, and murder ballads we’ve crafted this list of 13 spooky-season bluegrass songs just for you:
The Country Gentlemen – “Bringing Mary Home”
THE bluegrass ghost story song. THE archetypical example of “What’s that story, stranger? Well, wait ‘til you hear this wild twist…” in country songwriting. (Yes, that’s a country songwriting archetype.) The Country Gentlemen did quiet, ambling — and spooky — bangers better than anybody else in bluegrass.
Cherryholmes – “Red Satin Dress”
Fans of now-retired family band Cherryholmes will know how rare it was for father and bassist Jere to step up to the microphone to sing lead. His grumbling, coarse voice and deadpan delivery do this modern murder ballad justice and then some.
One has to wonder, though, with so many songs about murderous, deceitful women in bluegrass — the overwhelmingly male songwriters across the genre’s history couldn’t be bitter and misogynist, could they? Could they?
Zach & Maggie – “Double Grave”
A more recent example of unsettling songwriting in bluegrass and Americana, husband-and-wife duo Zach & Maggie White give a whimsical, joyful bent to their decidedly creepy song “Double Grave” in the 2019 music video for the track. Just enough of the story is left up to the imagination of the listener. Feel free to color inside — or outside — of the lines as you decide just how the song’s couple landed in their double grave.
Alison Krauss – “Ghost in This House”
Come for the iconic AKUS track, stay for the impeccable introduction by Alison. Equal parts cheesy and stunning, if you haven’t belted along to this song at hundreds of decibels while no one is watching, you’re lying. Not technically a ghost story, we’re sliding in this hit purely because a Nashville hook as good as this deserves mention in a spooky-themed playlist.
The Stanley Brothers – “Little Glass of Wine”
Ah, American folk music, a tradition that *checks notes* celebrates the infinity-spanning, universe-halting power of love by valorizing murdering objects of that love. Kinda makes you think, doesn’t it? Here’s a tried and true old lyric, offered by the Stanley Brothers in that brother-duet-story-song style that’s unique to bluegrass. What’s more scary than an accidental (on purpose) double poisoning? The Stanley Brothers might accomplish spooky ‘grass better than any other bluegrass act across the decades.
Missy Raines – “Blackest Crow”
A less traditional rendering of a folk canon lyric, Missy Raines’ “Blackest Crow” might not feel particularly terrifying in and of itself, but the dark imagery of crows, ravens, and their relatives will always be a spectre in folk music, if not especially in bluegrass.
Bill Monroe – “Body and Soul”
The lonesome longing dirge of a flat-seven chord might be the spookiest sound in bluegrass, from “Wheel Hoss” to “Old Joe Clark” to “Body and Soul.” A love song written through a morbid and mortal lens, you can almost feel the distance between the object’s body and soul widening as the singer — in the Big Mon’s unflappable tenor — objectifies his love, perhaps not realizing the cold, unfeeling quality of his actions. It’s a paradox distilled impossibly perfectly into song.
Rhiannon Giddens – “O Death”
Most fans of roots music know “O Death” from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and the version popularized by Ralph Stanley and the Stanley Brothers. On a recent album, Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi reprise the popular song based on a different source — Bessie Jones of the Georgia Sea Island Singers.
The striking aural image of Stanley singing the song, a capella, in the film and on the Down from the Mountain tour will remain forever indelible, but Giddens’ version calls back to the lyrics’ timelessness outside of the Coen Brothers’ or bluegrass universes and reminds us of just how much of American music and culture are entirely thanks to the contributions of Black folks.
Johnson Mountain Boys – “Dream of a Miner’s Child”
Mining songs are some of the creepiest and most heartbreaking — and back-breaking — songs in bluegrass, but this classic performance from the Johnson Mountain Boys featuring soaring, heart-stopping vocals by Dudley Connell, casts the format in an even more blood-chilling light: Through the eyes of a prophetic, tragic dream of a miner’s child. The entire schoolhouse performance by the Johnson Mountain Boys won’t ever be forgotten, and rightly so, but this specific song might be the best of the long-acclaimed At the Old Schoolhouse album.
Oh daddy, don’t go to the mine today / for dreams have so often come true…
Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch – “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby”
A lullaby meets a field holler song on another oft-remembered track from O Brother, Where Art Thou? The disaffected tone of the speaker, in regards to the baby, the devil, all of the above, isn’t horrifying per se, but the sing-songy melody coupled with the dark-tinged lyric are just unsettling enough, with the rote-like repetition further impressing the slightly spooky tone. It’s objectively beautiful and aesthetic, but not… quite… right… Perhaps because any trio involving the devil would have to be not quite right?
AJ Lee & Blue Summit – “Monongah Mine”
Another mining tale, this one based on a true — and terrifying — story of the Monongah Mine disaster in 1907, which is often regarded as the most dangerous and devastating mine accident in this country’s history. AJ Lee & Blue Summit bring a conviction to the song that might bely their originating in California, because they make this West Virginia tale their own.
Jake Blount – “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”
“In the Pines” is one of the most haunting lyrics in the bluegrass lexicon, but ethnomusicologist, researcher, and musician Jake Blount didn’t source his version from bluegrass at all — but from Nirvana. That’s just one facet of Blount’s rendition, which effortlessly queers the original stanzas and adds a degree of disquieting patina that’s often absent from more tired or well-traveled covers of the song. A reworking of a traditional track that leans into the moroseness underpinning it.
The Stanley Brothers – “Rank Stranger”
To close, we’ll return to the Stanley Brothers for an often-covered, much-requested stalwart of the bluegrass canon that is deceptively terrifying on closer inspection. Just who are these rank strangers that the singer finds in their hometown? Where did they come from? Why do none of them know who this person or their people are? Why are none of these questions seemingly important to anyone? Even the singer himself seems less than surprised by finding an entire village of strangers where familiar faces used to be.
For a song so commonly sung, and typically in religious or gospel contexts or with overarchingly positive connotations, it’s a literal nightmare scenario. Like a bluegrass Black Mirror episode without any sort of satisfying conclusion. What did they find? “I found they were all rank strangers to me.” Great, so we’re right back where we started. Spooky.
Artist Name:Jason Eady Hometown: Stephenville, Texas Latest album:To the Passage of Time
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Merle Haggard. No question about it. I have learned from him in every way. His effortless style of singing, the simplicity in his writing style, the way he covered different genres, the way he managed his career, all of it. Everything I do is in some way influenced by Merle Haggard, whether I’m aware of it or not. I think he was the best all-around country artist who has ever lived.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
I’m very into photography lately. I got into it about four years ago as a way to have a hobby on the road and it really took. I didn’t realize when I started that it would affect my music the way it has. It has changed the way that I see the world, specifically in looking for more details. After a while with photography, like songwriting, you realize that you’ve exhausted everything that you can see on the surface and you have to start looking deeper for details. Seeing those details through photography has definitely expanded my imagery in my songwriting.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Quiet. That’s the most important pre-performing ritual. I need time to focus and center. If I go straight from noise and commotion to the stage, it can take a while for me to relax into what I’m doing. I always try to set aside the 30 minutes prior to performing to just be quiet and get centered and ready.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
When I’m on the road I try to make an effort to stop every day and just walk, preferably in nature. This job can be very chaotic at times, and intentionally stopping to walk and look around is a great exercise. If I can walk somewhere quiet then that’s even better. I’m very aware when I come across places where there is no noise. It’s crazy that when you start looking for that you realize how hard it is to find. Just complete silence. But when I find it I try to stop and appreciate it, and what a rare moment it is.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Almost always. Every character I write has some version of me in them. It’s not always 100 percent true, and usually isn’t, but there’s always some truth about me in there somewhere. I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to write a character that is completely separate from me.
My mind has been concentrated on making music for my latest record, Wanderer’s Compass. I let Wanderer’s Compass be a collection of as many influences in music I’ve had as possible. I’ve been playing long enough that I used to learn my fiddle parts from an LP and move the needle back to catch the solo parts. Then of course over time, with the advent of the internet, the influence highway, so to speak, became much wider. I’ve always thought it is hard to put music in a box, since it is art, even though I essentially understand the reason for genres. To me the whole point of art is to let all of your influences and experiences be the palette in which to create your vision. This playlist is really fun for me to listen to, and I hope you enjoy it as well. — Jeremy Garrett
Dire Straits – “Where Do You Think You’re Going?”
This song was off a record that I heard early on in my life and the soul that Mark Knopfler brought to this song continues to influence me to this day.
Larry Sparks – “Blue Virginia Blues”
Larry is a master of song delivery, selection, singing, and incredibly soulful guitar playing that is old school, yet crosses any boundaries from that world into the new because art like that knows no bounds.
Tony Rice – “Urge for Going”
From the album Native American, this track is the epitome of how to produce a song to pull all of the essence from it for the listener to hear. Any bluegrass musician can tell you that Tony Rice is the man to listen to for song production, not to mention his unmatched guitar skills.
Jeremy Garrett – “Wishing Well”
“Wishing Well” is an original and on this track I stretch way out on the fiddle for a jam.
David Grisman – “Fish Scale”
David is one of the best and truest musicians of our time. This is a one-of-a-kind song from a one-of-a-kind artist, David Grisman. I particularly love Tony Rice’s playing on this track.
The Stanley Brothers – “The Lonesome River”
This is one of history’s most eerie and interesting sounding bluegrass duos. Their songs and the way they sing them are my personal favorite sounds of the traditional bluegrass era.
Strength in Numbers – “Blue Men of the Sahara”
This ensemble was one of the most creative in acoustic music. This particular song showcases what happens when you marry music stylings from around the globe, and Mark O’Connor rips a fiddle like nobody’s business.
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson – “Pancho and Lefty”
This cut is pure magic if you ask me. I love everything about it, from the wacky-sounding synth stuff to the magic that Haggard brings when he comes in for his verse. Sends chills up my spine.
George Jones – “Choices”
There may not be any better country singing than this right here.
Jimi Hendrix – “Red House”
There is perhaps no one more inspiring to a musician who wants to tap into soul and vibe. Hendrix is the one who paved the way for all of us in that regard.
Deep Forest – “Sing with the Birds”
This music was an indicator for me at an early age that I loved world music and the technology that continues to evolve to help create some of it. This is programming at its finest and it’s flowing with creativity.
Jeremy Garrett – “Nevermind”
This is a Dennis Lloyd cover that I love to perform. Dennis is an Israeli pop artist. It’s a culmination of my bluegrass chops on fiddle, guitar, mandolin, along with effects, experimentation, and programmed beats.
On his new album Depreciated, John R. Miller shows a true appreciation for traditional country songwriting and progressive bluegrass musicianship, even though his music isn’t neatly defined by either one. A West Virginia native who now lives in Madison, Tennessee, Miller unveiled the material at a club show in Nashville just a few days after the album’s release on Rounder Records. His original songs are rich in detail and humor, although his lyrics can get moody enough to satisfy anybody who’s looking for the darker side of acoustic music. Delivered in his rough-hewn baritone, his songs somehow feel like familiar stories that you want to hear again.
Before returning to the road, Miller caught up with BGS at an East Nashville coffee shop to talk about his acoustic heroes, where he found his first guitar, and why he puts a fiddle in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
BGS: You announced this record by releasing “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder,” which is not exactly a happy song, but it does makes me laugh. What was on your mind as that song was taking shape?
Miller: I wrote that after I moved away from the town I’d lived in for a while. It’s a small-town scenario. When you go back after being away, you’re in the mode of trying to avoid some people. It can be tricky to navigate but I thought it was a funny little song that I didn’t think we would end up recording. Then we rearranged it a little bit and turned it into what it is now – and it’s the first song on the record. You just never know, I guess.
Where is your hometown?
The place where I grew up is just off the highway in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. It has historically been pretty rural. There’s a lot of development around the highway, so it’s turned into a strip mall highway town. Just over the mountain, it gets real country real quick. But for most of my 20s I lived in a river town called Shepherdstown. It’s small, just a couple of bars in town and everybody knows everybody. That was home for a long time, but I felt like I needed a fresh start, so I moved down here. I spent so much time traveling and felt untethered in the first place. A lot of my friends started getting older and moving away. A few of them actually came down here. This was the next place, where I knew the most people and the most couches to crash on for a little while. I decided to give it a shot and I’m still here.
When did you gravitate toward playing guitar?
I was about 14 when I picked up guitar. My dad had a nylon string guitar in the closet that I never saw him play. I was starting to get into music more, and into punk bands that I found out about from my friends. Basically I was trying to learn power chords on this classical nylon string guitar classical guitar. Eventually I wrote that out and got a Stratocaster and tried to do garage bands in high school.
Were you and your friends listening to acoustic music too?
Maybe not when I was a teenager. We were mostly into indie rock and punk rock growing up, like skater kids. It probably wasn’t until I was 19 that my musical interests expanded a little bit. I started getting into songwriters. The real gateway for me was that Steve Earle and Del McCoury Band album, [1999’s The Mountain], which is one of the best out there. I had already found my way into Steve Earle’s music and then that dovetailed nicely with bluegrass and old-time music with that record. That was a big one for me.
Are you a bluegrass fan?
Oh yeah. I’ve lived in the bluegrass world a little bit and during times in my life a whole lot. I used to play in a string band too. It was more like a fiddle-centric string band, but we did some bluegrass stuff as well and got on that circuit for a little while. There were a couple of guys in the string band that were ahead of me in terms of what they knew about and what they liked, so they helped me learn about a whole lot of stuff.
Who were some of your influences in bluegrass?
I’m a huge Jimmy Martin fan. That stuff’s so cool and just kind of ragged in all the right ways. The Stanley Brothers, of course. There are some modern bluegrass bands that I’ve grown to love a whole lot. Town Mountain is one of the best out there. We crossed paths with them a little bit back in the day and it’s cool to see them still doing it. The Seldom Scene’s Live at the Cellar Door record is a classic too. I really love that. I also really love that early newgrass stuff, like Old & In the Way and John Hartford. That Old & In the Way record was a constant in the van.
Speaking of that, how did you get the idea for “Half Ton Van“?
That song in particular, I spent months looking for an old van to get the band moving. I was on Craigslist and Marketplace a whole lot. I feel like I was seeing a lot of the same tricks, you know? I went to look at a lot of terrible vans. It was a few years ago and I had already been through a few vans with other bands, and it always feels like I’m trying to find one at the last minute. I ended up getting one that was full of rust holes and leaking oil and everything like that. So the song is an amalgam of all those experiences of people trying to sell their junk to you.
At your show, the crowd really responded to “Shenandoah Shakedown,” which surprised me. It has that gothic feel, and seems to be the sleeper on the record.
That one seems to be doing pretty good. I wouldn’t have expected that either because it’s kind of different. It doesn’t strike me as an accessible song necessarily. That one is heavily inspired by living on the river out there. It’s more of a collection of vignettes of time spent up there, and some mushrooms and whatnot involved, you know? Some of the characters are composites but there are specific people in it, for sure.
There’s a lot of fiddle on this record too. Why do you like having that in the mix?
I love fiddle tunes and fiddle music and I spend a lot of time at fiddlers conventions, like the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia, or in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It’s been a constant in my life for a really long time now. I’ve got a lot of buddies in that world and I play a little fiddle myself too. It’s a great way to just sit down and play tunes with people. The communal feeling and the non-commerciality of it is really cool. So I’m a little obsessive about it. Putting fiddle in a full rock ‘n’ roll band sounds good to my ears, and I also feel like if it wasn’t there, I would miss it — the presence of it.
Why did you want to include a guitar instrumental, “What’s Left of the Valley,” on here?
I’ve definitely written a couple of guitar pieces, but my partner Chloe really liked that one. I played it for her and it was her idea to just try it in the studio. We took a break from doing the stuff we had on the docket and gave that a try. It ended up feeling so nice, I thought it would be a good way to break up the songs on the record. I like that kind of stuff too, like an instrumental interlude.
At your show I was happy to hear you cover a Gary Stewart song, “Single Again.” What is it about that honky-tonk sound that appeals to you?
Man, it just sounds so cool to me. There’s a really wide range of it but that Gary Stewart stuff is so cool and so nuanced. A really high level of musicianship playing pretty accessible music is pretty awesome. I love country music very much. That’s been my soul food. Early to mid ‘70s is the sweet spot for me.
As a songwriter going into a music career, did you always want to have a full-band sound?
I don’t mind playing by myself — it’s kind of its own thing — but I’ve always played in bands and I love that connection. It’s so much fun. I prefer to be making music with my buddies and I’m fortunate to be playing with the band I’ve got now. They’re easygoing folks and great musicians. We’ve been on the road for a little over a week now and this is the first long tour that we’ve gotten to take together. We’re all getting used to it again.
Listening back to this record now, what goes through your mind?
I’m really proud of the work we did and what I love most about it is that I got to actually sit and play the songs live in a room with some of my close friends. Adam Meisterhans, who played guitar with us the other night, co-produced the record. He and I played in bands in West Virginia. I know him from Shepherdstown too. He’s like a brother to me. So it’s been cool to very intentionally work on a project and have it get finished and work out, you know? It’s nice to know that we did it the way we wanted to.
My diary for Saturday September 26, 1987 — Earl Scruggs Celebration day at Gardner-Webb College in Boiling Springs, North Carolina — begins with an entry on foodways:
I meet Tom (Hanchett) and Carol (Sawyer) at 7:30 and we walk to the Snack Shop. As Joe had predicted the night before there were lots of pickups outside and quite a few people inside having breakfast. I asked the waitress for livermush and she told me they didn’t have it, that sometimes they did but today they were out of it. It wasn’t on the menu.
After breakfast we walked over to G-W’s Dover Library, Celebration headquarters. Horace Scruggs was there.
Outside Horace took me over to meet his banjo player, and he asked me to play a tune or two. I did “Cumberland Gap” and some other simple tune. The picker then played a lot of fancy stuff and told me about his two banjos.
Inside, people were setting up displays in preparation for the 10:00 opening. It was part museum, part market.
… various people were doing crafts; [an] instrument maker was there with his wife, who played guitar, and his young son (maybe 10) who was a good Scruggs-style banjo picker and played non-stop all afternoon long. They were selling cassettes of him.
Horace had brought in two banjos which Earl had loaned him to be displayed at the Celebration. One was a new Gibson Earl Scruggs model, and the other was the old banjo which had belonged to their father and which Earl had had repaired back in the fifties in Nashville.
Later, Tom would be installing storyboards about the connection between country music and the textiles industry in the Piedmont.
After Horace had set up his display Joe suggested he take us on a tour of the area where the Scruggses grew up. So, Tom, Carol, Joe, and I set out in Horace’s Fury.
‘Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo’ page 147 shows the Scruggs homeplace
He took us past the Flint Hill Church, their birthplace (depicted in the above photo from p. 147 of Earl Scruggs and the Five-String Banjo), and the house they’d moved to after their father’s death in 1930 (seen below, from p. 150).
The house has the same chimney as in the picture, but the upper part has been rebuilt with brick. A “beware dogs & keep out” sign was posted. Horace said that the family had decided to get rid of the house, but he wished they had kept it. This is the house he and Earl would walk around when practicing time — they would start a tune and each would walk in a different direction playing softly, to see if they could keep their time so they would be together when they met at the back. The right front room, visible from the road, was the one Earl went in when he figured out how to use the third finger in his banjo style.
‘Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo’ page 150 shows three Scruggs brothers, posing in front of their home
Then Horace took us down to the nearby Broad River to point out the site of Earl’s first professional gig, Ollie Moore’s fish camp.
At 10:00 the Celebration began out in front of the Library. Inoted: A beautiful sunny day which was to get up into the low 80s by the feel of it. The president opened the festivities and then Horace and his bandmates in Riverbend performed a few songs.
At last night’s dinner I’d gotten to know a couple from Raleigh, Margaret and Wayne Martin.
Both were old-time musicians. In 1984 they’d joined with two others to found PineCone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music, “an organization that would help support traditional roots artists and present their music to the public in a professional and respectful manner.”
An experienced teacher and performer, Margaret was scheduled to workshop with Etta Baker. This was one of the high points of the Celebration.
At 10:30 Margaret Martin set up with Mrs. Etta Baker in the Library lobby and did an hour-long workshop which was very nice. Mrs. B. played banjo some of the time, showing how her daddy picked 2-finger style; then she played the guitar, a D-18 with a built-in pickup, and did her “hits” like “Railroad Bill” and “John Henry” and also some nice Piedmont-style blues like, she said, her sons played. She was low-key but relaxed and effective as a performer, and Martin ran a good workshop, assisting musically but not getting in the way.
In the middle of this Snuffy Jenkins, Pappy Sherrill and the Hired Hands arrived and were standing at the back of the crowd in the lobby. I had a good talk with both of them, trying to give some idea of what I wanted on the workshop.
Banjoist Jenkins and fiddler Sherrill began their careers in the ’30s playing a blend of old-time and country. Snuffy played 3-finger style even before Earl, who acknowledged his influence. Still active after nearly fifty years, they were living history. They’d watched bluegrass develop. What could they say about that? Also, I was particularly interested in having them demonstrate the kind of shows they’d done in their early years — the radio pitches and Snuffy’s baggy-pants comedy.
Unfortunately, Snuffy hadn’t brought along his rig for the full comedy routine but they said they would do some comedy.
I pursued a bit of tune research, wondering about a tune Earl Scruggs had played in his 1945 audition for Monroe. I’d heard that Earl learned it from Snuffy.
I asked Snuffy about “Dear Old Dixie,” which he did play. He told me he learned from a Rutherford County fiddle band, the Barrett Brothers — a group they always beat in contests, he said.
It was noon; Carol and Tom and I took a lunch break. As the afternoon began:
We sat out on the campus green, a broad sloping lawn with a stage at the lower end, and listened to Snuffy Jenkins and Pappy Sherrill along with their band.
The Hired Hands, all younger South Carolinians, included guitarist Harold Lucas; his son Randy, who played banjo and guitar; and Frank Hartley on bass. After a 10-song set, a young guest, Philip Jenkins, was introduced. Philip’s father Hoke was Snuffy’s nephew, a good banjoist who’d recorded with Jim & Jesse in the early ’50s. Philip, playing his dad’s fancy old Gibson, did “Train 45” and “Sally Goodin.”
Snuffy closed out the show by bringing out his “confounded contraption,” a washboard fitted with cowbell, frying pan, wooden block, and an old bicycle horn, on which he played rhythm with eight sewing thimbles as Pappy fiddled “Chicken Reel” and “Alabama Jubilee.”
Snuffy Jenkins & Pappy Sherrill on the cover of their Rounder release, ’33 Years of Pickin’ and Pluckin”
Other bands followed. I wandered around at the back of the crowd, taking in the music from different perspectives and meeting fans. Around two I went back to my room, picked up the tape recorder and headed for the seminar room in the library where the workshop was to be held.
I used the recorder, a Sony Walkman Pro cassette machine with an external mike and a C90 cassette, to record the workshop. What follows is based on a table of contents drafted soon after the event. The tape itself, like most of my research materials, is now in Memorial’s archives, out of reach at the moment.
We began at 3:00 with an introduction by Dr. Brown and a speech of welcome from G-W’s Vice President for Academic Affairs. The band opened up with their theme tune, the old fiddle tune “Twinkle Little Star.” Dr. Brown introduced me and I began in emcee style to introduce the band, a leisurely process involving a bit of humor and local place names. Although this was a workshop, Pappy and Snuffy treated it as a show, offering comic relief and virtuoso instrumentals at regular intervals.
I spoke briefly about the band as living history, mentioning that Pat Ahrens, a writer from Columbia, South Carolina, their base of operations, had written a nice little book about them, with photos, and a discography.
I told how the word “bluegrass” had taken on a musical meaning following Earl Scruggs’ years with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, and then asked Snuffy to talk about his early history. It was a question he’d been asked before. He and Homer were prepared. Their response was pretty much like the one on this YouTube clip, recorded in 1988 at the Tennessee Banjo Institute:
In 1939 Jenkins and Sherrill came together at a radio station in Columbia, South Carolina, as members of the WIS Hillbillies, a band led by Byron Parker, formerly the Monroe Brothers’ emcee and bass singer. Byron Parker and His Mountaineers, a lineup that included Pappy and Snuffy.
Their regular radio shows enabled them to make the bookings that sustained their early career at the small rural schools dotting the countryside around Columbia. Sponsored on the radio by Crazy Water Crystals, a laxative, they recorded 16 tunes and songs — eight 78s — for RCA Victor in 1940 as Byron Parker and His Mountaineers, with fiddle, guitars, mandolin, banjo and Parker’s bass vocal on the hymns. Their broad repertoire included “Up Jumped The Devil” on which Snuffy took banjo breaks which today sound very bluegrassy:
After Parker’s death in 1948, Pappy and Snuffy took over the band and changed the name to The Hired Hands.
Pappy Sherrill was the band’s emcee. He told the history of the band, calling their records “old timey stuff, no extra notes.” Many of their songs and tunes would find their way into bluegrass repertoires. I asked Homer for an example; he played “Carroll County Blues,” the fiddle classic from Mississippians Narmour and Smith that they’d recorded in 1940:
After demonstrating Snuffy’s banjo work, the band did several songs. Here’s how they sounded doing “Long Journey Home” in 1990:
On this song, Snuffy takes all the lead breaks and can also be seen playing clawhammer backup. Regrettably, Homer’s fiddle is in the background here; he usually played lead breaks. Randy Lucas brings in the fingerstyle guitar demonstrated earlier by in the day by Etta Baker. After they’d played four pieces, I posed a question to the band members — what’s the difference between old-time and bluegrass?
Lead singer Harold Lucas began with a joke: “there’s a fine line between old-time and not being able to play at all.” Then, referring to his son Randy, a master of new styles, he described the interplay between old and new generations.
Pappy spoke about growing up listening to the radio. To him, old-time is easier. Bluegrass is fast, with high-pitched singing — not the same. He stressed the importance of duets in old-time.
Randy said “it takes old fellows to play old-time music” and that he got his inspiration from Pappy & Snuffy — “they make music fun.”
As far as he was concerned, said Snuffy, “Ain’t no difference — slow and fast.” He joked about his own “mellow voice — over ripe, almost rotten.”
Returning to the question I’d posed, Pappy and Randy Lucas, now playing banjo, demonstrated the differences between old-time and bluegrass. Pappy fiddled the venerable “Leather Britches” as an example of old-time. Then Randy demonstrated bluegrass with a recent, fancy banjo piece, Don Reno’s “Dixie Breakdown.” Fluent in both styles, each took breaks on both tunes.
I asked about comedy. Pappy described the skits that were an integral part of the Hired Hands show. He said they had a writer, Billy F. Jones, who scripted their comedy pieces, making parts for each member of the band. They weren’t set up to do a skit today, but they did an old traditional musical comic dialogue that originated in 19th century theater, “Arkansas Traveler.” In 1960 the Stanley Brothers had a big record hit with a version that combined the traditional dialogue with new music, titled “How Far to Little Rock”:
Afterward Snuffy and Pappy spoke of their comedy work in the early years — making up, getting into costume, pratfalls, and so on.
Then, after Randy had played “There’s An Old Spinning Wheel in the Parlor” demonstrating his mastery of contemporary banjo styles, Snuffy responded to a request and brought out his “confounded contraption,” the washboard, to play along with Pappy on the popular fiddle favorite, “Down Yonder.” Here’s how Snuffy looked playing washboard on another fiddle favorite, “Alabama Jubilee,” at a festival in 1989:
Pappy reminded the audience that they had mostly played as small local schools with audiences all ages. Their show was for the whole family. “No smut.”
Nearing the end of the workshop, I called for questions. A number came in from the audience — asking about their sponsor, the history of Snuffy’s washboard, other touring bands, and their Columbia, South Carolina, base.
Finally, Pappy explained that their shows always included hymns; he had a box full of Stamps-Baxter and Vaughn gospel quartet songbooks, and taught the parts to the group from them. They were complex, responsorial. Here’s an example from their 1940 RCA sessions, “We Shall Rise,” with Byron Parker singing bass.
On this afternoon, Pappy closed with a simpler hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” played on the fiddle.
Afterwards he thanked the audience. I concluded with remarks about the band’s role in the change from old to new in folk traditions, and the transition from home and neighborhood to stage and radio.
Just before Dr. Brown formally ended the workshop, well-known local banjoist Dan X Padgett presented a gift — a hat — to Snuffy. I did not note what the hat looked like, and that detail has escaped my memory. But there’s more coming about Dan X Padgett and the rest of the Celebration in Part 3 of this memoir.
Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the show has been a weekly recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on BGS. This week, we look forward to new releases coming in 2021 as we continue to celebrate roots Grammy nominations and as we bid farewell to our January Artist of the Month. Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour!
One thing we can celebrate this January is the first ever presence of a woman in our nation’s second-highest office. So, what better way to begin our show this week than with this song from Sheryl Crow’s re-release of “Woman in the White House?”
A collaborative effort between Boston and Lisbon, the Burnt Pines bring us this week a twist on the typical love song. “Love isn’t easy,” they told BGS, celebrating their just-released, self-titled album.
From the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, singer-songwriter Colin Macleod weaves in and out of regret with “The Long Road.” From his upcoming album, Hold Fast, this music video is one of our most recent features here at BGS.
Dolly Parton – queen of country music and COVID-vaccine backer – just celebrated 75 years! And what better to celebrate than with her classic bluegrass trilogy of albums (newly made digitally available) and this song, which earned itself a few 2001 Grammy noms, as well as Best Female Country Vocal Performance for Dolly herself!
Diving into 2021, we’re excited about all of the new releases heading our way. One that sticks out in particular is the collaborative This Thirteen coming in March from Jimbo Mathus and Andrew Bird, two musicians who call each other heroes. This week, we have a sneak peek with “Sweet Oblivion.”
NYC-based Matt Urmy caught up with BGS this week on a recent 5+5 – that’s five questions, five songs. We talked all things Cowboy Jack Clement, weird rituals, the dream meal pairing of French food and Leonard Cohen – and, this song from his upcoming South of the Sky.
Nashville-based musician Kristin Andreassen (Uncle Earl) has teamed up with Brookyn’s Kari Groff, MD, child-psychiatrist and violinist for A Mind of Your Own. The album, which focuses on children’s mental health, features a wide range of guests, including the Punch Brothers, the War & Treaty, and none other than BGS co-founder Ed Helms!
Not that long ago, we featured Athens GA-based singer and songwriter Adam Klein and his Low Flyin’ Planes release. Well, this song was meant to be there, but things never work out like we expect. Klein gives us the best of both worlds with his new EP, Little Tiger: Outtakes from Low Flyin’ Planes, out now!
Lizzie Weber takes us from her St. Louis home to the California-coast for “Blue Wave Boom,” from her just release How Does It Feel EP. The song was inspired by the bright blue colors enveloping the black sea after the red tide, which served as a metaphor for the toxicity in one’s own mind, especially during the long shutdowns of 2020.
We revisit our March 2020 Artist of the Month, The Secret Sisters, in celebration of their Grammy nomination for Saturn Return, produced by Brandi Carlile and the Hanseroth twins. The sisters recently gave “Cabin,” which is also nominated for best American roots performance, an acoustic makeover.
King of Country Cool, Marty Stuart brings us a previously unheard Johnny Cash song from the new collective tribute, Forever Words Explained. This song was lined up to be recorded before Johnny Cash’s death, but was never brought to light. When this tribute came around, well, who better than Marty Stuart?
From Chatsworth, Georgia, Pony Bradshaw wrote “Foxfire” out of 19th century historical inspiration after reading Down by the Riverside: a South Carolina Slave Community and Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture. Celebrating his new album Calico Jim, we’ve featured the song and Bradshaw on BGS this week!
There’s nothing quite better to wrap up our January Artist of the Month tribute to the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? than end the show with the song that ends the movie. So from all of us here at BGS, we honor 20th anniversary of the momentous film and soundtrack with the Stanley Brothers “Angel Band.”
Photos: (L to R) The Stanley Brothers; Dolly Parton, ‘Little Sparrow’; The Secret Sisters by Alysse Gafkjen
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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