• Lamar Grier passes

    Lamar Grier, banjo player with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and the Strange Creek Singers, among other notable names, passed away on Tuesday December 10, 2019. He was 81 years of age.   Born on April 15, 1938, Philip Lamar Grier Jr

  • Saburo ‘Sab’ Watanabe passes

    Sab Watanabe Inoue, founding banjo player with Bluegrass 45, died yesterday at home in Japan. He was 69 years of age and had been battling cancer this past three years. One of the most visible and influential bluegrass personalities in Japan,

  • Willard Cox passes

    Willard Cox, patriarch of The Cox Family who have performed bluegrass, acoustic country, and Gospel music together since 1972, has passed away. He was 82 years of age. From their home in northwestern Louisiana, Willard and his four children - Evelyn,

  • Jim Brock passes

    Noted bluegrass fiddler Jim Brock passed away on October 16, 2019, at Aliceville Manor Nursing Home, Aliceville, Alabama. He was 85 years old.  James Earl ‘Jim’ Brock Sr. was born on August 5, 1934, in Lamar County, Alabama, an area with

  • Helen White passes

    Helen White, founder of Junior Appalachian Musicians, died on October 14. She was 69 years of age, and passed away at home after suffering a heart attack. Born in Washington, DC, Helen traveled widely before settling in western North Carolina after

  • Donald Warthan passes

    Donald Warthan, lifelong bluegrass performer and founder of the band, Heritage, died on October 10. He was 79 years of age. Warthan lived his life in Charles City, VA, not far from Richmond where Heritage was based. The band developed a strong

  • Raymond Fairchild passes

    Raymond Fairchild, noted banjo player, entertainer, and western North Carolina icon, died yesterday following a heart attack. He was 80 years of age. Fairchild was born and lived most of his life in and around Cherokee, NC, and is himself half-Cherokee

  • Pat Murphy passes

    The bluegrass scene along the US gulf coast lost one of their biggest champions last week when Pat Murphy died at his home in Mobile, AL. He was 67 years of age, and passed after an exhaustive battle with a

  • Randy Davis passes

    Randy Davis, the bass player with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys from July 1974 through to June 1979, passed away after a short battle with cancer on Friday, September 27, 2019. He was 65 years of age. Stephen Randall “Randy” Davis was