• On This Day #16 – Andy Townend

    On this day …. On July 21, 1998, ace British mandolin player Andy Townend passed away in the Kent and Sussex Hospital, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, after a short illness. He was aged 46. Born on January 12, 1952, he was a

  • On This Day # 15 – Richard Underwood

    On This Day …. On July 14, 1956, Richard Underwood was born in Seabrook, Maryland. The 57 year old is best known for his hard-driving banjo playing for the Johnson Mountain Boys, that great neo-traditional band of the 1980s. Underwood first experienced bluegrass

  • On This day #14 – Joe Val

    On this day ….. On June 25, 1926, Joe Val was born. Joseph Valiante, shortened to Joe Val by Tex Logan, was a bluegrass music pioneer from New England. Born in Everett, Massachusetts, he was a relative late-comer to country music, starting to

  • On This Day #13 – Gloria Belle

    On this day …… June 9 is the birthday of Gloria Belle. Probably best known for being Jimmy Martin's so-called "girl singer" in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, she played mandolin, guitar and bass at different times as a Sunny

  • On This Day #12 – Ray Park passes

    On This Day……………………… On May 15, 2002 Ray Park died. Ray Park (guitar and fiddle) is most notable for his partnership with mandolin player Vern Williams. In 1959 they formed a band called the Carroll County Country Boys; the very first bluegrass

  • On This Day #9 – Earl Taylor

    On this day ….. On January 28, 1984, soulful bluegrass singer and mandolin player Earl Taylor died. Earl Taylor was born on June 17, 1929, in rural Rose Hill, Lee County, Virginia.  He was the leader of one of the more significant

  • On This Day # 7

    On this day in 1923 …… January 10, 1923, Curly Ray Cline was born. Had he lived, the extrovert Curly Ray Cline would have been 90 years old today. Born in Pike County, Kentucky, Cline was inspired to play the fiddle by hearing