
The North Carolina Music Hall of Fame has included legendary bluegrass fiddler Bobby Hicks as one of their six inductees for 2024.
Bobby has already received this honor from the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2017, but he will surely cherish being inducted by his home state as well when the 2024 class is officially recognized on October 17 in Mooresville, NC.
His long career in bluegrass started with the Father, serving as a Blue Grass Boy starting in 1953, and closing out his touring life on fiddle with Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder in 2004. Along the way he served as part of the groundbreaking ’80s group, the Bluegrass Album Band, and has been recorded on more than 50 albums.
With Bill Monroe, he participated in several multiple fiddle tune recordings, including Roanoke, Cheyenne, and Wheel Hoss, now considered bluegrass standards. In a later session with Bill he also cut Panhandle Country, Scotland, Big Mon, and Monroe’s Hornpipe.
With Skaggs his fiddle was the driving force on Ricky’s cover on Monroe’s Uncle Pen, as well as other hits like Country Boy and Highway 40 Blues.
Hicks stayed with Skaggs through his country days, where he also played banjo on a few songs, and on into Ricky’s return to bluegrass.
In between Monroe and Skaggs, he spent seven years in the Las Vegas show of Judy Lynn, followed by a headlining Vegas act of his own. Though not everyone in bluegrass knows it, Bobby is also a fine vocalist.
Bobby has worked with many other bluegrass acts, like Jim Eanes and Mark Kuykendall.
His two solo albums, Texas Crapshooter and Fiddle Patch, and one with Kenny Baker, Darkness on the Delta, are considered classics.
The induction of Bobby Hicks into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame is deeply and well deserved.
Also to be inducted this year are rapper Petey Pablo; jazz and rock industry player Clarence Avant; founder of the National Negro Opera Company, Mary Caldwell Dawson; independent record label, Merge Records; and bass player and singer, Tommy Faile.
Congratulations all!