Bluegrass-music innovator Bobby Osborne dies at 91, little more than a month after last Grand Ole Opry appearance

Osborne in 2017, the year of his last album
(Photo by Larry McCormack, The Tennessean)

Bobby Osborne, the older but persisting half of a duo that brought innovation to bluegrass music, helping it keep a commercial foothold, died Tuesday. He was 91.

"Osborne may be best known for cutting 'Rocky Top' with his longtime brother-bandmate Sonny Osborne, but his mandolin playing and familiar tenor vocal stretched far beyond the licks of a Tennessee state song," Matthew Leimkuehler reports for the Nashville Tennessean. "The brothers built a legacy that led to a White House performance and Country Music Association Award win. At the height of popularity, they bridged a space between country and bluegrass music, receiving radio play and adopting amplified instruments on concert bills — a rarity among string bands at the time."

The New York Times' Bill Friskics-Warren writes, "Employing a wider repertoire than the Appalachian wellspring from which most of their peers drew, the Osbornes also worked with a more expansive musical palette, embracing country, pop and rock material associated with the likes of Ernest Tubb, Randy Newman and the Everly Brothers. . . . They built a bridge between first-generation bluegrass royalty like Bill Monroe and the duo of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and intrepid latter-day inheritors like New Grass Revival and Alison Krauss. . . . Osborne earned a reputation as one of the first bluegrass mandolin players to expand the instrument’s vocabulary beyond what Monroe, the father of bluegrass, had established early on."

Sonny Osborne retired in 2005, and died in October 2021 at 83, but his brother was still performing and teaching when he told Steve Hensley of WYMT-TV in Hazard, Ky., near their native Leslie County, in May 2022, "I was born to do it, and I ain’t going to quit." He "took his final Opry bow on May 19, 2023, nearly 60 years after being asked to join," Leimhuehler reports.

"The Osborne Brothers premiered in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1953 and became the first bluegrass group to appear on a college campus with their 1960 performance at Antioch College," WYMT reports. Their use of drums and electric instruments rankled bluegrass purists, but their commercial success held sway. They got "Rocky Top" from prolific writers Boudleaux and Felice Bryant and made it the B side of a December 1967 single, but WSM DJ Ralph Emery flipped the disc and made it a hit. Five years later, it was the signature tune of the University of Tennessee marching band. The brothers would open and close shows with it, and after Sonny retired, Bobby's band was named the Rocky Top X-press.

'I've endured.' Eastern Kentucky musicians rebuild after the floods with hope and resilience

Damaged instruments from the Museum of the 
Mountain Dulcimer (Photo by Stephanie Wolf, WFPL)

Decimated by the 2022 flooding, Eastern Kentucky's music community is finding ways to rebuild all that was lost: "The water carried away dozens of historic instruments, including early examples of the hourglass-shaped dulcimer, developed and honed in Knott and Letcher counties in southeast Kentucky, and one once played by Appalachian music legend Jean Ritchie," reports Stephanie Wolf of Louisville's WFPL, discussing the losses at the Museum of the Mountain Dulcimer in Hindman. "About two-thirds of the collection 'just disappeared.' What was recovered will need extensive restoration."

Doug Naselroad, co-curator of the museum, told Wolf that it was difficult for him to dig up the courage to visit after the flood. When he finally did get up the nerve, he felt "like you're Indiana Jones exploring his own tomb. You have trepidation and dread looking in at the things you cherish and trying to will them back."

Eastern Kentuckians are familiar with flooding, Wolf writes, "but there's a distressing redundancy in the responses I heard when asking people about this particular weather event, which swept through Central Appalachia but did the most concentrated damage here, in the southeast part of the state."

Sarah Kate Morgan at Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, where she serves as director of traditional arts education, told Wolf, "For the next year, we're going to be focused on rebuilding what we lost instead of reaching out, like we usually do. We won't be able to do as much of the good work that we used to . . . and I fear that we'll lose some momentum."

Toward the end of their interview, Wolf shares, "Morgan fetched her own mountain dulcimer from her on-site apartment, saying, 'It'd be nice to play music for a second,' Her brief set included a subdued rendition of Ernie Carpenter's Elk River Blues and Ola Belle Reed's 'I've Endured'. When I thanked her for the performance, she answered as though I'd done her a favor: 'It was good for me to share.'"

Wolf continues, "Naselroad and his team have begun the long process to restore both the luthiery and the factory, and he hopes to be building instruments again in an alternate facility before the end of the year. As for the museum and its recovered instruments, their story just got bigger: not merely artifacts of the builders and musicians who brought them to life, but now, witnesses to a historic crisis, and participants in the collective recovery."

"The things that can be restored, that can be repaired, that survived? I think it's a powerful statement," Naselroad told Wolf. "Our heritage can't be destroyed."

J.D. Crowe dead at 84; 'none finer on the five-string banjo'

J.D. Crowe, right, accepted an honorary degree from University of Kentucky
President Eli Capilouto in 2012. Faculty Trustee Robert Grossman is at left.

J.D. Crowe, a maestro of the banjo and bluegrass music, died Saturday at 84.

"His place in the pantheon of banjo players is certain," John Lawless writes for Bluegrass Today, which says there was "none finer on the five-string banjo."

"Among those who followed the example of Earl Scruggs, Crowe was perhaps the first to rise as a disciple of the new style who not only made it his own, but did so with a precision and power that set him apart from the herd," Lawless writes. "No one ever played bluegrass banjo more passionately, more inventively, or more interestingly than he did. Two generations of pickers have studied his playing, and even those who are taking the three-finger style in new directions, like Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, and Noam Pikelny, will readily acknowledge Crowe as a major influence and an unmistakable stylist in his own right. If Earl Scruggs was a machine, J.D. Crowe was a carnival ride. His playing was fun, lighthearted, and even frivolous at times, all coming from his own distinct personality."

After playing with Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys, Crowe formed the Kentucky Mountain Boys, which had on mandolin and vocals Doyle Lawson, another member of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. They became J.D. Crowe and The New South, and in 1975 their album The New South "changed the sound of the music forever," Lawless writes, noting that the record was better known by its number, Rounder 0044. "With Tony Rice on guitar and lead vocal, Ricky Skaggs on mandolin and tenor vocal, Crowe on banjo and baritone vocal, Bobby Slone on bass, and Jerry Douglas on reso-guitar, 0044 announced to the world that a new generation of bluegrass music had arrived, with an aggressive, take-no-prisoners sound. . . . The combination of Rice’s Clarence White-inspired rhythm guitar with Crowe’s driving and dynamic banjo defined a novel sound that remains with us today." 

“That particular record from 1975 was what really gave me a passion for wanting to play music,” Allison Krauss says in "A Kentucky Treasure: The J.D. Crowe Story," the 2008 documentary by Russ Farmer. Krauss, Crowe and Rice were later in the Rounder All-Stars Bluegrass Band.

Lawless says Crowe rivaled bluegrass founder Bill Monroe "with the number of stellar artists he brought to prominence as members of The New South. Not long after the departure of Tony Rice and Ricky Skaggs, Crowe brought in Keith Whitley on guitar, and Gene Johnson on mandolin, both of whom saw huge success in country music in a few years’ time. Other noted grassers who worked for J.D. would include Don Rigsby, Phil Leadbetter, Rickey Wasson, Richard Bennett, and Ron Stewart." Crowe's aptly named "Fireball" won the 1983 Grammy for country instrumental.

Crowe's funeral will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday at Jessamine Christian Church in Nicholasville, Ky., near his native Lexington, with visitation there from 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Sonny Osborne of the Osborne Brothers, music greats with Ky. roots who broke out Tennessee's 'Rocky Top,' dies at 83

Sonny Osborne, right, and brother Bobby

Sonny Osborne, an innovative bluegrass virtuoso who was half of The Osborne Brothers, died Sunday at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn., about two months after suffering a stroke. He was 83.

Osborne and his brother Bobby, 90, who survives, began their musical careers in Dayton, Ohio, where their family had moved from Hyden, Ky. After working with Bill Monroe as a high-school freshman, Sonny joined Bobby to perform, later in Jimmy Martin's band, then formed their own group with Red Allen. Their first record, "Ruby Are You Mad (at your man)" was a big hit in 1956, featuring the "stacked trio" vocals that were their trademark.

The Osborne Brothers rankled some others in bluegrass by using drums and electric instruments, innovations led by Sonny, but it helped them build an audience broader than most bluegrass artists had, and they joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1964. In late 1967, they released a single with the ballad "My Favorite Memory," backed on the B side by their up-tempo version of "Rocky Top," a tune that famed songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant had knocked out in less than 15 minutes. When they promoted the record on Ralph Emery's show on Nashville's WSM Radio, the switchboard lit up when Emery played the B side, and a hit was born. It became the University of Tennessee fight song in 1972 after Lynn Anderson had a bigger hit with it in 1970.

"The banjo playing of Osborne . . . has perhaps been heard more than any other bluegrass picker (save possibly Earl Scruggs) thanks to the worldwide fame and enduring presence" of "Rocky Top," John Curtis Goad writes for Bluegrass Today. "However, there was certainly much more to Osborne than what was basically a novelty song at the time . . . He took the basic elements of bluegrass banjo and elevated them to new heights while still maintaining a strongly traditional feel. . . . His playing was both tasteful and complex – just listen to his solo rendition of 'America the Beautiful,' a performance of which brought the audience to tears at the 2001 International Bluegrass Music Asssociation Awards, held just days after the 9/11 attacks."

The brothers entered the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1994. Sonny retired in 2005, after complications from rotator-cuff surgery, but he remained active in mentoring young musicians, and wrote a column for Bluegrass Today. Bobby soldiers on with his band, the Rocky Top X-Press.

UPDATE, Oct. 28: Walter Tunis of the Lexington Herald-Leader sums up Sonny in a nice tribute.

Tyler Childers drops a surprise album meant to raise money for Appalachia and raise awareness about racial injustice

Screenshot of Childers' album website

Eastern Kentucky-born country singer and songwriter Tyler Childers released a surprise album on Friday meant to raise money for Appalachian philanthropic efforts and raise awareness about racial injustice to rural white listeners, Joseph Hudak reports for Rolling Stone.

Long Violent History is mostly instrumental fiddle music but includes a track with the same name of the album, in which Childers "sings about the Appalachian upbringing of a 'white boy from Hickman' and how he and his kin have been sometimes labeled 'belligerent' and 'ignorant.' But, he points out, they’ve never had to fear for their lives," Hudak reports. "Could you imagine just constantly worryin'/Kickin' and fightin', beggin' to breathe?" he sings.

"The album arrives with a six-minute video message from the Kentucky songwriter, in which he directly challenges his fans, including his 'white rural listeners,' to empathize with black victims of police brutality," Hudak writes. "It’s a stunning speech, with Childers touching on his six-month sobriety, the covid pandemic, and the South’s misguided allegiance to the Confederate flag. But the focus of his address is on police brutality."

In the speech, Childers encourages rural, white listeners to empathize with the Black Lives Matter movement with a thought exercise: He asks them to imagine how they would feel if they constantly saw news headlines such as "East Kentucky man shot seven times on a fishing trip" for a story about a white man rummaging through his tackle box, shot by a game warden who thought he was reaching for a knife, Hudak reports. "If we wouldn’t stand for it, why would we expect another group of Americans to stand for it?" Childers asks.

All net proceeds from the album benefit the Hickman Holler Appalachian Relief Fund, which Childers and his wife established earlier this year to help fund philanthropic efforts in Appalachia. 

The new album isn't the first time Childers has waded into politics and philanthropy. The Martin County native began writing songs partly as a reaction to the negative portrayal of his home town an episode of ABC News' "20/20". And in 2018, after the Martin County Water District gained nationwide attention for failing to provide clean, reliable drinking water to residents, Childers donated—and helped distribute—500 cases of water to his home county.

Quick hits, from Appalachia to Mississippi to Colorado to Minnesota to Canada

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Exploring Southern Appalachia: Conquistadors made Spanish the first European language spoken in Appalachia. Read more here.

Lack of shelters in rural Minnesota makes the homeless an 'invisible problem': Read more here.

"The Mountain Minor," a film about the spread of Appalachians and the roots of bluegrass and country music, is winning multiple awards. Read more here.

Mississippi Rural Broadband Summit reveals hurdles to cross. Read more here.

The Rural Health Information Hub has created a toolkit for rural communities wanting to implement Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease programs. Read more here.

A White House Office of National Drug Control Policy representative listened to government officials and health-care providers in Northern Colorado speak about their experiences with the opioid epidemic. Read more here.

The rural-urban divide is defining politics in other countries, as shown by Canada's recent election. Read more here.

The University of Colorado hosted a day-long conference on entrepreneurship in rural America. View the event info here and watch a livestream capture video of the event here.

Friday PBS documentary traces history of bluegrass music

Bill Monroe at the first multi-day bluegrass
music festival, in 1965 (Ron Petronko photo)

PBS viewers have been bombarded with reminders that Ken Burns's "Country Music" documentary will begin on the network Sept. 15, but have gotten relatively little notice of a similar film on bluegrass music, which will air Friday at 9 ET.

Big Family: The Story of Bluegrass Music "joyfully reaffirms" the genre's wide appeal, taking viewers from its Kentucky roots to the surprising global locales that have made it their own, Walter Tunis writes for the Lexington Herald-Leader. It's narrated by actor Ed Helms, a bluegrass enthusiast who played the banjo-playing character Andy Bernard in "The Office."

"Along with the international fascination, you’re left with the sense of how deeply a part of the American cultural fabric the music has become. Banjoist Graham Sharp of the Grammy-winning Steep Canyon Rangers states as much at the film’s onset," Tunis writes.

Sharp says, "I think of bluegrass as one of those very sort-of-ingrained American things. Like baseball."

"Big Family" was a mammoth undertaking for Kentucky PBS affiliate KET. It has footage shot over three years, including interviews with more than 50 luminaries such as Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Del McCoury, J.D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs and Bela Fleck.

Condensing more than nine hours of material down to two hours was agonizing, according to KET producers Matt Grimm and Nick Helton, Tunis writes. Grimm told him, "We wanted to be true to the story but include all that we could. At the same time, we wanted it to have broad appeal. We wanted those who are not bluegrassers to be able to relate to it."

Helton added that they also wanted to debunk stereotypes about bluegrass musicians and show the genre's connection to American culture. "They’re serious musicians doing things most musicians can’t do. There’s the speed with which they play, the rhythm," Helton said. "One of our biggest points was to show this rich history that really does weave itself through American history, as well. I think a lot of people don’t realize how much bluegrass music played a part in pop culture."

World culture, too. Grimm told Tunis that he and Helton got an unexpected ovation in a small music club in Tokyo where a Japanese bluegrass band was about to play. When the audience members heard the two were from KET, they applauded because they recognized the station's name from its old bluegrass programming. "We couldn’t have felt more welcome," Grimm said.

Bluegrass legend Dean Webb, influence on many, dies at 81

Dean Webb, on "The Andy Griffith Show," left, and playing his mandolin.

Bluegrass mandolin legend Dean Webb died on June 30 at the age of 81. He first began playing bluegrass and country music in honky-tonk bars across the rural Midwest, but in the early 1960s began playing with The Dillards. After the group got a recording contract in 1962, they released several albums and began to gain some notoriety. But their big break came from their appearances on The Andy Griffith Show, in which they played bluegrass as members of the fictitious Darling family. Besides that, "The Dillards have had television exposure on Nashville Now, The Johnny Cash Show, Hollywood a Go-Go and Hootenanny, among other programmes," Richard Thompson reports for Bluegrass Today. They also opened for Elton John on his first tour of the U.S. in 1972.

The Dillards' musical influence ranges far beyond what one might expect: Webb's mandolin playing helped influence Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones to pick up the instrument, and his harmony arranging skills helped The Byrds figure out the complicated harmonies on "Mr. Tambourine Man," Thompson reports.

"What an enormous influence he had on musicians out here," longtime bluegrass DJ Wayne Rice told Thompson. "I don’t think I ever heard anyone play the mandolin quite like he did. He held it like a machine gun and just blew us all away."

Ronnie Ellis, Kentucky statehouse correspondent for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., remembers Webb on a more personal level. He writes in the Richmond Register that Webb was his best friend and an uncommonly loving, patient and methodical man. "Dean loved deeply those he loved at all. He loved as well to share his friends, impatient to introduce one to another. Because he was that way, I met an extraordinary number of exceptionally interesting people, a couple of whom also became life-long friends," Ellis writes. "I've often told my children I am the richest person I know. Not for what I possess but because of the people I'd been given to love and enjoy. Dean enriched my life more than I can describe. His was one long adventure and he kindly took me along for the ride."

Leon Russell, who played classical, rock, country, blues, soul, gospel, jazz and more, dies at 74

UPDATE, March 19, 2023: A biography tells us a lot but not enough about this secretuve musical icon.

Leon Russell, a musical genre-blender who played sessions and then did concerts and records with musical greats and earned a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, died at his home in Nashville Saturday. He was 74.

"With a top hat on his head, hair well past his shoulders, a long beard, an Oklahoma drawl in his voice and his fingers splashing two-fisted barrelhouse piano chords, Mr. Russell cut a flamboyant figure in the early 1970s," Jon Pareles writes for The New York Times. He did "Wall of Sound" sessions with producer Phil Spector, started Shelter Records, led Joe Cocker's band, played at George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh and concerts with Jerry Lee Lewis and the Rolling Stones, had hit records with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and by himself, wrote hits for others, played country music as Hank Wilson, did bluegrass with the New Grass Revival, explored jazz and blues, faded into obscurity and then resurfaced in a late-life collaboration with Elton John. The Tennessean of Nashville has a photo gallery of his career.

Russell was classically trained but a birth injury limited his timing and range of motion on keyboards. He told the Los Angeles Times in 1999, "I invented ways to play in a classical style that was not the real deal." Born Claude Russell Bridges in Lawton, Okla., in 1941, he adopted his stage name from a Los Angeles friend who loaned him an ID so he could play clubs when he was under 21. He had "a rich, hearty voice that drifted between country and soul," and his "Union" album with Elton John is "an elegant work that showcases each artist's prowess with the piano and Russell's flair for bridging pop and gospel," writes the LAT's Todd Martens. John called Russell "one of the greatest American treasures."

Russell told the LAT he was hard for radio program directors to figure out because "I was not a brand that they could always expect was going to be the same thing. I'm not as aware of categories in music as some people are. To me it's just music. I'm interested in all kinds of music." In 1978, he issued an album called "Americana" which helped define yet another genre that seemed to fit him best.

'Americana' music gains popularity and recognition

Bob Weir performing

"Americana" music is on the rise, with four of its artists—Bon Iver, Bob Weir (formerly of the Grateful Dead), Van Morrison and the Drive-By Truckers—in the most recent Billboard charts top 10 for the week ending Oct. 6, Dan Rys reports for the magazine. Americana has more spots in the top 10 than any other music except rock, a genre for which all four artists also qualify.

The four's popularity reflects a recent trend toward the establishment of Americana music as a distinct genre in a realm often dominated by rock, country, rap and R&B, Rys writes. In 2010 the Grammy Awards added a Best Americana album category—Levon Helm won it that year—and there are now categories for Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance.

In August of 2015, Merriam-Webster officially added "Americana" to its dictionary, "defining it as 'a genre of American music having roots in early folk and country music.'" Rys writes. "And in May, Billboard announced the re-branding of the Folk Albums chart following in-depth dialogue with industry contacts, writing the chart would 'spotlight the middle ground bridging country and rock: organic, roots and acoustic-based groups and solo singer-songwriters.'"

Jed Hilly, executive director of the Americana Music Association, told Rys, "I think it's burgeoning in the commercial marketplace for a community that already existed in a non-commercial marketplace. I think that the fact that there's a word in the dictionary, there's a Grammy Award, [now] there's a place for these artists who don't necessarily fit in the mainstream commercial boxes, but do have artistic similarities can call home." (Read more)

How often is your state named in popular songs?

Does your state inspire musicians to write songs? Julia Silge, who writes a blog, data science ish, used figures from the Billboard Hot 100 from 1958 to the present to chart two maps, one that shows how many times a state was mentioned in song lyrics and one that divided mentions by population to find which states got more or less than their share of attention, Ana Swanson reports for The Washington Post. (Pictogram: Number of mentions by state)

"Southern states like Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky turned out to have an outsized influence, as did states like New York, Hawaii and Montana," Swanson writes. "Nebraska and Maine also fared well." (Number of mentions by state per every million residents)

Silge found that New York had the most mentions, 51, although she estimates that many of those references probably refer to the city, not the state. Second was California, with 26 mentions, followed by Georgia (21), Texas (13), Tennessee (11), Alabama (9), Mississippi (8), Kentucky (7) and Hawaii and Virginia (6).

When accounting for mentions per every million people, Hawaii was No. 1, followed by Mississippi, New York, Maine, Georgia, Montana, Alabama, Tennessee, Nebraska and Kentucky.

Don Parmley, a bluegrass legend, has passed

Don Parmley

You hear him play the banjo every time you watch one of America's classic TV comedies. He brought to his band Chris Hillman, who became an original member of the Byrds. He was well known in bluegrass music circles, but not so much beyond. His name was Don Parmley, and after he died July 30 at 82, country-music radio legend Eddie Stubbs gave the eulogy in Parmley's hometown of Monticello, Ky.

Parmley moved from his native Southern Kentucky to Southern California in 1956, where he "met Flatt and Scruggs and had an opportunity to play the banjo for 'The Beverly Hillbillies'," reports the Wayne County Outlook. "For nine consecutive seasons, when one scene segued into the next, the banjo interlude that viewers heard came from Parmley." He had helped start the Golden State Boys, which became the Hillmen after Parmley invited Hillman and his mandolin to join them. In 1969, with his son David, he formed the Bluegrass Cardinals, recognizing Kentucky's state bird and the mascot of his old Wayne County High School.

"The Bluegrass Cardinals rose very quickly to become a very important product of their time, the late 1970's and all through the 80's," said Stubbs, announcer for WSM in Nashville and its Grand Ole Opry. "Their standard of excellence on record and in person was second to none. There was a lot of complexity within the Bluegrass Cardinals' music, made in three-chord songs they were doing, but it was that complexity within the simplicity that made that music so great." He said the International Bluegrass Music Association should put them in its hall of fame. "What Don and David Parmley did, and their vision and the music that they made, was extraordinary."

Kaine used old-time harmonica skills to appeal to rural Virginia, may do likewise as VP nominee

"He carries multiple harmonicas in his briefcase. He has played with members of the Dave Matthews Band and the Grateful Dead. And he has been known to show up unannounced at bluegrass jamborees around his home state, Virginia, simply looking to jam," Nick Corasaniti reports for The New York Times. "Meet Tim Kaine, vice-presidential candidate, senator, former governor—and mouth organist."

Times reporter Michael Shear says in a video accompanying the story that Kaine is likely to use the harmonica as he and Hillary Clinton run for the White House: "Part of the secret to Tim Kaine's success in Virginia politics has been in finding a way to appeal to the rural folks in Southwest Virginia, and one of the ways he did that was playing the harmonica." Music impresario Woody Crenshaw says in the video, "He has a feel for the old-time music of these mountains."

"Kaine has made music an important part of his political life," Corasaniti writes. "He has often 'sat in' at bluegrass open jam sessions while campaigning and in office. During his Senate campaign in 2012, he held a promotional contest, 'Harmonica With Tim,' in which one lucky person would win not just a dinner with Mr. Kaine, but also a one-on-one harmonica lesson. He had a bluegrass band, No Speed Limit, play his inauguration in 2006 (and he hopped onto the stage for a few songs, naturally)."

Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog, noted that Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee campaigned as fiddle players. He told Corasaniti that Kaine's talent helped him in Virginia: "If you show up someplace where people don’t really know you and you can play a tune, even if it’s not a tune they recognize, they think, ‘This guy’s not a politician; he can play music’."

Ralph Stanley's race is run: Oh, come, Angel Band

My latest sun is sinking fast; my race is nearly run.
My strongest trials now are past; my triumph has begun.
Oh, come, Angel Band! Come, and, around me stand!
Oh, bear me away on your snow-white wings, to my immortal home.

--"Angel Band," a Stanley Brothers classic

Ralph Stanley (Virginia Living photo by Robb Scharetg)

Ralph Stanley, whose clawhammer banjo picking and high-lonesome singing helped create a distinctive genre of American music in which he was an icon for seven decades, died today at the age of 89 after a long fight with skin cancer. "His musical importance cannot be overemphasized," writes John Curtis Goad of Bluegrass Today.

UPDATE, June 26: Stanley "leaves behind an enormously influential—and just plain enormous—body of work," David Cantwell writes for The New Yorker. "He was careful to identify not as bluegrass but as the old-time music that folks today call bluegrass. . . . His voice sounded so vital and powerful, and yet at the same time so frail and so very, very old." His funeral is Tuesday evening; here's the formal obituary. And an editorial tribute from the Bristol Herald Courier.

UPDATE, June 29: Here is David McGee's report for the Herald Courier on the funeral, with a video report from WYMT-TV of Hazard, Ky.

Stanley and his brother Carter, a guitar player, helped pioneer bluegrass in the 1940s, but he preferred to call it "mountain music," having come from Southwest Virginia, not Kentucky, the home of Bill Monroe, whose native-state name stuck commercially. But the Stanley Brothers and their "Clinch Mountain sound," drawn partly from their Primitive Baptist upbringing, were just as important to the genre as Monroe, writes Jana Pendragon of AllMusic. "The Stanleys are the reason that Monroe is remembered today as the father of bluegrass music," Cantwell opines. "Monroe, with key assists from Flatt and Scruggs, invented an exciting sound. As the first to adopt that sound, Ralph and Carter Stanley helped to invent a genre."

When Carter Stanley died at 41 in 1966, his shy brother considered giving up performing, but he revived the Clinch Mountain Boys. The band remained a staple of bluegrass, and "helped launch the careers of such country and bluegrass stars as Larry Sparks, Ricky Skaggs and the late Keith Whitley," notes Terence McArdle in an excellent obituary for The Washington Post. For a comprehensive obituary from The Associated Press, click here.

"Some new bands called their music 'new grass' and added rock songs to their playlists. Ralph decided to go in the opposite direction," Herb E. Smith of Appalshop, director of The Ralph Stanley Story, writes in a tribute for the Daily Yonder. "He described it as 'taking the music more back into the mountains.' . . . Those of us who choose to stay, who care about these mountains and the well-being of mountain communities, must remember Ralph and the old songs. We must also write new ones, so that the next generations will be strong."

In 2000, Stanley's a cappella, Primitive Baptist version of "O Death" in the film O Brother Where Art Thou "(a new cut of a song he had originally recorded as part of the Stanley Brothers), brought his music to an entirely new audience," with a soundtrack that sold 6 million copies, Joad notes. The performance won him a Grammy for best male country vocal, and that and the film "put the icing on the cake for me. It put me in a different category," Stanley told Don Harrison for Virginia Living magazine.

"Ralph Stanley was elemental. His voice was freshwater, wind, sky, and stone," Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young told AP. "Dr. Ralph is revered by Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, Ricky Skaggs, and most anyone else equipped to handle the unfiltered truth." Stanley had an honorary doctorate from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn.

Stanley was not known as a writer, but was a favored interpreter and popularizer of classic folk and Appalachian songs, such as "Rank Stranger," "Man of Constant Sorrow" and this other song of farewell and longing, by his Southwest Virginia neighbors, the Carter Family:

When death shall close these eyelids, and this heart shall cease to beat
And they lay me down to rest, in some flowery bound retreat
Will you miss me? (Miss me when I'm gone)
Will you miss me? (Miss me when I'm gone)
Will you miss me? (Miss me when I'm gone)
Will you miss me when I'm gone?

Yes, we will.

Jam bands serving up bluegrass music and a side of corny jokes in Appalachian fast-food joints

Bluegrass jam bands are playing music and cracking jokes in Appalachia in some of the strangest places, including fast food restaurants, shopping malls and courthouses, John Miller reports for The Wall Street Journal. "The bluegrass jam at the Dairy Queen in Rocky Mount, Va., has been going 20 years. It has become such an important part of the restaurant’s identity that its owners remodeled the sound system so customers could hear the music better." Deborah Russell, whose family has owned the restaurant since the 1970s, told Miller, “We rigged it up so people can hear it on the street and in the bathroom." (Miller photo: Hardees in Clarksburg, W.Va.)

A group in Clarksburg, W.Va., jams at the local Hardee's, after having moved from a McDonald's when remodeling made it difficult to clear enough space to play, Miller writes. The jams are basically a free-for-all. "Usually, players turn up representing at least one of the instruments that make up a bluegrass lineup—bass, guitar, banjo, mandolin and fiddle. Anybody can call a tune to play, or join in when they feel like it."

The musicians are also performers, throwing out corny jokes between songs, Miller writes. For instance, one joke goes: “Excuse me, where does this road go? Stranger, this road don’t go nowhere. Every morning, I wake up, and it’s still here.” Another goes: “Fellow said, can you lend me five bucks? Other fellow said, I can’t hear you. First fellow said, can you lend me 10 bucks? Other fellow said, I heard you the first time.” (Read more)

PBS documentary, new album detail Loretta Lynn's Appalachian roots; she is 83

PBS on Friday will air a documentary, "Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl," detailing the Appalachian roots of the 83-year-old country singer who was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky coal country, Kristin Hall reports for The Associated Press. The documentary coincides with the release of Lynn's first album since 2004, "Full Circle," which includes many of the Appalachian songs she listened to growing up in Butcher Hollow. (Donn Jones photo: Loretta Lynn on Feb. 10 at the Municipal Auditorium in Nashville)

"Although her rags-to-riches story is already well known thanks to a best-selling autobiography and Oscar-winning film starring Sissy Spacek, Lynn has never before recorded many of the Appalachian songs that inspired her career," Hall writes. The album contains covers of songs from the Carter Farmily, as well as "In the Pines," an Appalachian folk traditional dating back to the 1870s, and the first song Lynn ever wrote, "Whispering Sea," which was the b-side of her first recording, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl," released in 1960. (Read more)

The Crooked Road links rural music communities in Virginia, generated $13M in 2008

The Crooked Road, a driving trail that runs 333 miles from the Blue Ridge to the Cumberland Mountains, connects music venues in Southwest Virginia and keeps the music alive, as well as providing a needed ecopnomic boost, Desire Moses reports for NPR.

Virginia.org map of The Crooked Road. The orange line represents The Road.

Appalachian Virginia's poverty rate was three percent higher than the national average in 2013. The region relied on lumber and coal, said Stewart Scales, an Appalachian Geography teacher at Virginia Tech. "With the companies leaving the mines, they're also leaving the area in general, so that's leaving people without jobs," Scales said. "The big question is, what happens next?"

Woody Crenshaw, who used to own one of the main stops along The Crooked Road, said, "We really saw that the music was this huge, untapped and unappreciated asset." The music is called "old-time," "early country" or bluegrass.

Musicologist Joe Wilson and Todd Christensen of the Virginia Department of Housing came up with the idea for The Crooked Road in 2003. "There probably not a month that goes by when someone doesn't stop in our office and says, 'We're following The Crooked Road,'" said Leah Ross, executive director of Bristol's Birthplace of Country Music Museum, a stop along the road.

A 2008 study showed that The Crooked Road's economic impact brought in $13 million just that year. Floyd resident Woody Crenshaw said, "A lot of communities which felt like they just didn't have the assets, didn't have the opportunities, didn't have a direction, I think The Crooked Road has offered some hope. I really do." (Read more)

Judge allows Tenn. town to change its name a second time, to Rocky Top, at developer's behest

A federal judge has declined to issue an injunction preventing the Tennessee town of Lake City from changing its name to Rocky Top to take advantage of the strong identity of the Bluegrass tune that is the fight song of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Google map: Lake City is pinned, Rocky Top is starred

The city council voted yesterday to start the process of changing the name, after U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan ruled against House of Bryant, the music publishing company founded by the late Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, who wrote the song in the Great Smoky Mountains town of Gatlinburg in 1967. Lake City, population 1,800, lies between the Cumberland Mountains and the westernmost arm of Norris Lake, the first Tennessee Valley Authority project. The town was called Coal Creek before the lake was impounded in the mid-1930s.

The state legislature and Gov. Bill Haslam have already enacted a law allowing the change, which is being sought by a developer. "Rocky Top Tennessee Marketing and Manufacturing Co. . . . has proposed a development that could be worth up to $450 million over six years and include an indoor and outdoor water park, coal miners’ theater, children’s museum, train rides, restaurant, and a candy company on some 300 acres near two exits off Interstate 75," reports John Huotari of Oak Ridge Today. "Officials have said it could bring 200 new jobs to Lake City and generate another $6 million in sales tax per year. But the project hinges on the name change."

The music publishing firm filed suit in March, saying the name change “is an attempt to unfairly exploit the fame and goodwill of House of Bryant’s intellectual property.” The suit also alleges trademark infringement, false advertising, unlawful taking, deceptive trade practices and unfair competition. "Varlan ruled that Lake City likely would not infringe on House of Bryant's copyright because the town does not intend to use the name for commercial purposes," reports Travis Loller of The Associated Press. "Varlan also denied a request to put the brakes on the developers' plans, saying it was too early to issue an injunction on proposals that may never come to fruition."

House of Bryant contends that the name change would open the door to commercial exploitation of the name because it would make Rocky Top "merely a geographic reference," Loller reports. The suit says the song refers to "a fictional or idyllic place," though a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park bears the name.

Internet radio station gives worldwide exposure to aspiring musicians of Appalachia

Appalachian musicians are getting worldwide exposure through an Internet radio station based in West Virginia that mostly plays local bands from the Charleston area but hopes to expand to cover musicians in the entire region, Bill Lynch reports for The Charleston Gazette. The station, New Appalachian Radio, which began airing in March, was created by two former college classmates.

Station co-founder Jody Herndon told Lynch, "New Appalachian music can sound like a lot of things. It can be country or rock or rap or even metal. It’s just all influenced by being here." (Gazette photo by Kenny Kemp: Station founders Eric Meadows and Jody Herndon)

Herndon and co-founder Eric Meadows said that "What they hope to do is to give local people the chance to hear their favorite local bands someplace other than the clubs as well as spread that music farther out," Lynch writes. They said they also hope the station becomes popular enough to influence Appalachian musicians to remain locally instead of taking their musical talents to urban areas like New York or Nashville. (Read more) Listen to the station by clicking here.

Tennessee songwriting festival renews this week

Stunned that there wasn't already an Appalachian songwriters festival in East Tennessee, musician Cyndy Montgomery Reeves helped start one, Kenneth Burns reports for The Mountain Press, the daily newspaper for Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Now in its second year, the Smoky Mountains Songwriting Festival is scheduled to begin Thursday and run through Sunday in Gatlinburg. (Photo from festival website: Musicians performing at last year's event)

The event showcases amateur and professional musicians and features competitions in bluegrass, country, folk and rock, Burns writes. All live music is free. There are also workshops, which charge a fee, and cover areas such as how to write, pitch and demo a song, increasing your chances of getting a song cut, and co-writing.

Reeves was inspired to start the event after seeing a similar festival in Key West, Fla., Burns writes. She told Burns, "I love you, Jimmy Buffett, but how can you have a songwriters festival for 16 years, and I’m from East Tennessee, and I’ve never heard of one?” From there, Reeves helped preview the festival for city officials in 2011, before the first event was held last year. She told Burns, "It was very successful,. Everybody there enjoyed it. We broke even, and we started something we knew could be a great success.” (Photo by Kay Speer: Festival founder Cyndy Reeves)

One performer will be Marty Dodson, who has written songs recorded by Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Billy Currington, and Diamond Rio. Dodson told Burns, "It’s about putting a face behind the song. When people hear a song I wrote that Kenny Chesney did, they might feel like maybe he wrote it, or they don’t think about who wrote the song.” Dodson said songwriter festivals also can educate listeners about the nature of the music business. He told Burns, “If I’m downloading a song for free, here’s who I’m hurting, a real person with a family.” (Read more)