Doyle Lawson is one of the most highly awarded and revered artists in acoustic music. He is a mandolin master and an iconic band leader. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver recently released a live album, recorded early in 2019. Live in Prague, Czech Republic is available now on Billy Blue Records.
- Doyle’s father was in an a cappella Gospel group called the Clinch River Quartet.
- Self-taught on the mandolin before he’d reached his teens, Doyle soon added guitar and banjo to his instrument list.
- At the age of 18, he joined Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, playing banjo, and he stayed with the group for about three years.
- Doyle was a member of J.D. Crowe’s Kentucky Mountain Boys (later the New South), and also played with the Country Gentlemen.
- Doyle’s band, Quicksilver, was originally called Foxfire.
- He prefers his coffee black, and never decaffeinated.
- Doyle likes dry Cheerios for breakfast.
- Gibson makes a Lawson model mandolin.
- Doyle was first exposed to bluegrass when he was around 5 years old, listening to Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys on the Grand Ole Opry, but then it was simply considered country music.
- He made his own Opry debut when the show was still performed regularly at the historic Ryman Auditorium.
- Often, Doyle opts for stairs instead of elevators for exercise.
- On the road, Doyle and his band have been known to play catch with baseball and gloves, or toss a football around for fun and exercise.
- Doyle is a fan of baseball and football, and plays golf every chance he gets.
- He has a small collection of Roy Rogers memorabilia, and he loves old cars.
- Doyle may well be the only bluegrass artist ever invited to record with Paul Simon.
- He loves old Western movies. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy are among his favorites.
- The mini-series, Lonesome Dove (Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones) is still one of Doyle’s favorites.
- The Andy Griffith Show remains Doyle’s TV favorite.
- Doyle saw his first country music show when he was about 5 years old at the movie theater in Leatherwood, KY. It was Jimmie Skinner and his band. His mother had taken the kids to see a Roy Rogers movie and Jimmie did the show afterward. Leatherwood was a coal camp where his dad worked for the Blue Diamond Coal Company for about 3 years before moving back to TN.
- Doyle claims to have lost track of how many albums he has recorded.
