Sideman and Regional Musician

G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter sang together for only three years but had a tremendous effect not only on country music but other genres. Contemporary performers still perform such tunes as “Cluck Old Hen,” “Tom Dooley,” and “Handsome Molly” which originally sold 50,000 copies. Fiddler/Singer Grayson was born in Ashe County, NC and made his living in younger years as a minstrel traveling through the surrounding mountains playing at fairs and dances. Guitarist Singer Whitter was born in Fries, VA and was devoted to promoting old-time music. They met at a fiddlers’ convention in Mountain City, TN in 1927. Teaming up, they had two record deals by the fall. They recorded 14 records with a total of 40 songs but the untimely death in 1930 of Grayson in an auto accident brought a sad end to the duo.

Published in 2020

T. Michael Coleman

George Shuffler was born April 11, 1925 in Valdese, North Carolina to a large musical family. At age ten his father traded an old broken down car for a Kalamazoo guitar. At the age of 17, he was offered a job playing bass for the Bailey Brothers, and appeared with them on the Grand Ole Opry that same year. On December 28, 1950, Carter Stanley called and asked him to join the Stanley Brothers as bass player. Throughout the 1950s, Shuffler was primarily a bass player, but switched from the bass to guitar, and developed a style that changed the guitar from a side or rhythm instrument into a key component of bluegrass music. Shuffler perfected what would become his signature style of cross-picking. Shuffler worked with Don Reno and Bill Harrell until 1969, recording several albums with them on bass. In the early 1970s, he left the road to begin a new chapter of his musical career. For 22 years, he traveled and recorded with members of his family singing southern gospel music. He enjoyed recording “The Legacy Continues” with his protégé, the late James Alan Shelton, as well as “Mountain Treasures”, with his good friend and occasional musical partner, Asheville-based Laura Boosinger. In 1996 Shuffler was awarded the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award. He was a 2007 recipient of the North Carolina Heritage award, and in 2011 he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2013.

Published in 2018

George Shuffler

Bryan Sutton is the most accomplished and awarded acoustic guitarist of his generation, an innovator who bridges the bluegrass flatpicking traditions of the 20th century with the dynamic roots music scene of the 21st. His rise from buzzed-about young sideman to first-call Nashville session musician to membership in one of history’s greatest bluegrass bands has been grounded in quiet professionalism and ever-expanding musicianship. Sutton is a Grammy Award winner and a nine-time International Bluegrass Music Association Guitar Player of the Year. Today his discography reads like a roll call of Nashville’s last two decades, with credits on albums by Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton, Eric Church, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood and many more.

Published in 2016

Bryan Sutton

Terry Baucom heard the sound of Earl Scruggs’ banjo on the Beverly Hillbillies television show and at the age of 10. His parents gave him a banjo that year for Christmas and he was soon performing locally and regionally with his father’s band, “The Rocky River Boys.” He also started playing fiddle and got more experience from joining L.W. Lambert and The Blue River Boys, as well as, A. L. Wood and The Smokey Ridge Boys. Baucom is known as “The Duke of Drive,” a reference to his ability to “drive” a song with his steady, hard-driving banjo style. His first professional job came in 1970 with Charlie Moore and the Dixie Partners. In 1976, he joined Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas and Wes Golding to form “Boone Creek”, a band based in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1979, he was a founding member of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. He toured and recorded with the band for the first 6 years and later returned to “Quicksilver” from 2003-2007. Baucom was the original banjo player for IIIrd Tyme Out and appeared on their first two recordings on Rebel Records. In 2011, he released his first solo project on the John Boy & Billy Label. By 2013, his second solo project was released. It featured the award winning song, “What’ll I Do”, which received the 2013 Recorded Event of the Year award from IBMA. After working in Bluegrass Music as a sideman for more than 4 decades, in the Fall of 2013, he formed his own band, “Terry Baucom’s Dukes of Drive”.

Published in 2015

Terry Baucom

With few exceptions, the piano does not play a prominent part in Appalachian or Americana music, and is rarely the lead instrument. But Jeff Little is a remarkable exception. His distinctive two-handed style, much influenced by the mountain flat-picked guitar tradition, is breathtaking in its speed, precision and clarity. At the age of six Jeff would regularly sit in with many of the musicians from the region, including one of America’s most influential musicians: Doc Watson. A professional musician since the age of 14, Jeff is conversant with traditional old-time country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and blues. With a rack-mounted harmonica and vocals, he can also be a one-man show. Jeff settled in Nashville for a while, where he worked as a ses-sion man in between stints on the road. He also worked with a wide range of commercial country artists as a musician or manager most notably Keith Urban. In 2004, Jeff and his family returned to the Blue Ridge where he is the Director of the Music Industry Program at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, North Carolina. Today, Jeff continues to have a very busy concert schedule.

Published in 2014

Jeff Little

Norman Blake was born in Tennessee and raised in Georgia. At the age of 16, he began to play mandolin in a band and music has been the focus of his life ever since. Playing multiple instruments including the guitar, dobro, fiddle and mandolin, Norman Blake has toured with June Carter’s road group, Johnny Cash’s band, Kris Kristofferson’s road group, Joan Baez, and John Hartford’s Aeroplane Band. He has recorded with Bob Dylan on “The Nashville Skyline” album and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Will the Circle be Unbroken” album. Norman and his wife, Nancy, have been nominated for two grammys in the “Best Traditional Folk Recording of the Year” category in 1989 and 1992.

Published in 2013

Norman Blake

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