Curtis McPeake Archives - Bluegrass Today

Curtis McPeake passes

One of the originators of modern bluegrass banjo, Curtis McPeake, passed away at his home in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on Friday, February 19, 2021. He was 93 years old and had recently been hospitalized briefly.

McPeake was born on October 9, 1927, in Scotts Hill, western Tennessee, mid-way between Nashville and Memphis.

His father, a well-known entertainer in the area, was a pretty good old-style banjo and fiddle player. However, his son gravitated towards the guitar, which from about the age of nine years old he would play in support of his dad for their own entertainment and that of his family, friends, and neighbors.

Otherwise McPeake’s early musical influences came from listening to the Grand Ole Opry and other radio shows of the day.

He started his own career aged 14 on Radio WTJS in Jackson, Tennessee, playing steel guitar – an interest in which he began courtesy of a local farm worker – and mandolin in a band that he took over and re-named Curtis McPeake and the Rocky Valley Boys in 1945. He recalled, “I was doing radio work every day, six days a week.”

McPeake didn’t start playing the banjo until he was 18 after hearing Earl Scruggs. As that interest developed, McPeake changed his band to a bluegrass music format. They broadcast weekly on WXDL, Lexington, Tennessee, earning a sponsorship contract with an Arkansas flour company.

Another primary banjo influence was Rudy Lyle, who followed Scruggs as a Blue Grass Boy.

Early in 1956 McPeake was hired by Lester Flatt to substitute for Scruggs when the latter was injured in an auto accident in October 1955. He would fill in at various other times as Scruggs was indisposed through to 1968. This led to increased exposure for McPeake with live TV work in Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

He worked for Bill Monroe in 1960 and 1961, and again during 1962, recording five sessions – the first of which was on November 30, 1960 – and featuring on 18 cuts: those on Mr. Blue Grass (Decca DL-74080), and half of those on the Bluegrass Ramble album (Decca DL-74266).

Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys – Toy Heart

One of the highlights of his time with Monroe was the appearance as part of a Grand Ole Opry package show to perform a charity for elderly musicians at Carnegie Hall in New York City on November 29, 1961. Apparently, McPeake got an encore that night for his rendition of Cripple Creek.

After that spell with Monroe, McPeake became the first staff banjo player at WSM – and apart from a brief period with Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper – he remained with them until 1969.

In this video McPeake can be seen/heard taking a break, playing back-up and fills while with Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper ……

While based in Nashville he was much in demand as a studio musician, and did lots of jingles and commercials during this time, yet found time for a few collaborations – with Benny Williams, as Tennessee River Boys; with Billy Grammer, Ray Edenton, Tommy Hill, and Junior Huskey as The Bluegrass Hillbillies; and with Josh Graves, Benny Martin, Larry Morton, and Chuck Sanders, as The Nashville Pickers.

Thereafter he joined Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass – playing banjo with them for 18 years. During that period, they were starring guests on many of the biggest TV shows of the day, and took their brand of country music around the world. Of his tenure with Davis, McPeake professed, “I got out of bluegrass because I just wanted to feed my family and put my daughter through college. (Bluegrass Unlimited, July 1992)

In 1966 he invented the 10-string banjo. Much as the 12-string guitar used 6 pairs of strings, so Curtis’ 10-string banjo did the same, giving a sound not unlike two banjos playing together. The second string in each pair could be tuned in unison, in 3rds or 5ths, or even in octaves.

Here is an example of him playing that instrument – Red Dress (aka Cahulawassee Rapids, originally recorded by him in 1973) ……

McPeake left Davis in 1987 to take over Natchez Grass, a band that he later re-named The Natchez Express, and with whom he performed at a variety of festivals as well as local dates.

Having been interested in vintage instruments since his time with Monroe, Curtis established McPeake’s Unique Instruments, initially based in east Nashville before, in 1977, moving it out to Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He was considered one of the most highly regarded experts on Gibson pre-war banjos.

In addition to those early recordings with Bill Monroe and many with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, McPeake features on releases by The McCormick Brothers, George Jones & Melba Montgomery, Chubby Wise, Wade Ray, Wayne Raney, Hylo Brown, Leon Payne, Curly Fox & Texas Ruby, The Willis Brothers, C.W. McCall, Cecil Brower, and Tommy Scott.

He wrote several tunes throughout his career, one of which was Dixieland For Me ….

(from Bluegrass Hootenanny – George Jones with Melba Montgomery, recorded January 1964)

McPeake remained active into his 90s, participating in various Tennessee Banjo Institute and fiddler’s conventions, and most recently as part of a duo with guitarist and singer Andy May, releasing a CD about three years ago.

Salley Gardens – McPeake and May – Country Music Hall of Fame – July 2018

He was the well-deserved recipient of the Uncle Dave Macon Days Trailblazer Award (in 2010) and the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award (2018).

R.I.P. Curtis McPeake

Services will be held at Bond Memorial Chapel in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee on Wednesday, February 24, with visitation from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. followed by further visitation at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 25, and the service at 11:00.

A Discography

Curtis McPeake

The Dueling Banjos (Mountain Dew 7061, released September 1973) [reissued as Curtis McPeake Plays Dueling Banjos & Other Bluegrass Favorites (Gusto GTCD-1040, in 1987 and on Gusto GT7 0812-2, in 2008)]
Bluegrass Banjo Pickin’ (Cumberland MGC-29501, 1963), released as by The Mountaineers.
Curtis McPeake And His Smokin’ Banjo (Lake LK-1-1001, ca.1975)
The View From McPeake (Swift River Music SRM-CD-105, 2000)

The Bluegrass Hillbillies

Pickin’ N Grinnin’ (ABC Paramount ABC/ABCS-446, 1963)

Tennessee River Boys

Good Ole Mountain Music (Cumberland MGC-29505, 1963) [the 10 tracks on Good Ole Mountain Music were re-issued on The Tennessee River Boys (BACM D-417, (UK) 2013)]

NB: There are two different groups with the name The Tennessee River Boys on this CD.

Curtis McPeake & The Nashville Pickers

Cross Country Banjo (BD Communications RBS-105, 1976, (2-LP set)) [re-issued as Vintage 1976 (Lake 1-0005, 2002)]
C.B. Special (featuring Dick Curless) (BD Communications RBS-106, 1976)

Curtis McPeake & The Natchez Express

Headin’ South (Lake 1-0002)
Back To Dixie (Lake 1-0003)
I Have Found The Way (Lake 1-0004, ca.1991)

Curtis McPeake with Andy May

The Good Things (Outweigh the Bad) (Swift River Music SRM 120CD, March 16, 2018)

Various Artists

Bluegrass Special (Power Pak PO-218, 1973)
Fireball; Red Dress; Black Mountain Rag; Ruby; and Home Sweet Home – Also features tracks by Red Allen and by Benny Martin

Melba Montgomery and Curtis McPeake talk Bluegrass Hootenanny

Much of Nashville, and all of country music, was absorbed yesterday with the memorial service for George Jones held at the Grand Ole Opry house. Friends and loyal fans turned out to remember this musical giant, who passed away on April 26.

Over the course of the many George Jones tributes that have come in from bluegrass artists, we were reminded of Bluegrass Hootenanny, the album he did in 1964 with his then duet partner, Melba Montgomery. It included 12 tracks of new and popular bluegrass and Gospel music, and was recorded with an A-list team of ’60s studio musicians.

Artists on the three sessions for Bluegrass Hootenanny were Curtis McPeake on banjo, Tommy Jackson on fiddle, Roy Husky on bass, Shot Jackson on dobro, Ray Eddington on guitar, and Pig Robbins on piano. The drummer’s name seems lost to history.

The track listing included:

Dixieland for Me
Once More
Will There Ever Be Another
I’d Jump the Mississippi
Please Be My Love
I Dreamed My Baby Came Home
Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms
Blue Moon of Kentucky
House of Gold
Wait a Little Longer, Please Jesus
I Can’t Get Over You
I’ll Be There to Welcome You Home

It was released on United Artists, and has been out of print for some time, though it is still offered in digital format.

We reached out this week to Melba Montgomery and Curtis McPeake, who both have vivid memories of this album, and happily shared them for this overview of this historic recording.

Montgomery told us that she was a bluegrass fan from childhood.

“I always loved bluegrass. My dad played the old timey fiddle, and my mom played guitar and banjo. To me it was really close to the same music as we heard growing up.

The Osborne Bothers were great – and we played a lot of package shows with them, and Jim & Jesse and Flatt & Scruggs. We did a few shows with Bill Monroe, too. Of course he was the daddy of them all.”

We wondered if George was a fan as well.

“Yes he was – he loved bluegrass. A lot of time we’d be traveling together, and sing Blue Moon of Kentucky in the car, and lots of other bluegrass songs. He loved Gospel, bluegrass and country, and he could sing ’em all.

George was the all time greatest country music singer in the world. He had so much soul and so much feeling in his voice. And that tone he had.

It was such an honor to get to record and work shows with him. I’ve been very very blessed through my career.”

Bluegrass Hootenanny was released at the peak of the Jones/Montgomery collaboration. They had tremendous success together in 1962-’63, and Melba had a popular solo project in ’64 as well. When she and George dissolved their partnership in 1966, she continued to record and perform on her own, finding chart success in the 1970s. She retired from music about ten years ago.

Both Montgomery and McPeake recall the mid-’60s for the hootenanny craze, when that word had become a marketing touchstone. ABC had a very popular folk music program called Hootenanny on television, and producers and record labels were hot to capitalize on it.

Pappy Dailey, who had been producing Jones for some time, came up with the idea according to Montgomery.

“Pappy said why don’t we just do a hootenanny album and call it that. We had been planning to do a bluegrass album anyway, and we had a hoot of a time recording it!

Me and George picked the songs we wanted to sing. Pappy didn’t care what we did.

George did all our recording on one microphone – some duet singers used two mics, but we just used one – on stage and in the studio.”

McPeake, who was Nashville’s first call banjo picker in those days, said that he was initially surprised to get a call for banjo on a George Jones session.

“George didn’t do that kind of stuff, but he wanted to do this one and so we did. I think we did it in three sessions. One afternoon and then the next morning and afternoon. These were three hour sessions, and you were allowed to cut four songs by union rules.

I clearly remember being there, and we did it all off the cuff. No big production.

As good a singer as George was, you could just give him a song and he would run with it.

We got through the first session that afternoon, and I told George I had a song I wrote, and that he might like. He said, ‘Yeah… bring it in in the morning.’ So I brought it in and laid it out on the piano and started humming and singing my way through it.

He picked that song up, walked over to the mic and sang the crap out of it.”

That song was Dixieland For Me, which ended up being the album’s first track, one that Curtis wrote with David Watkins.

McPeake is a true icon in the bluegrass banjo world. He went on to tour with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, and even had the honor to fill in for Earl Scruggs with Flatt & Scruggs when Earl was injured in an auto accident in 1955, and on a few subsequent occasions.

“I guess I was doing about 90% of the banjo work in Nashville back then, and that was really no big deal. You might get 3 sessions one week, and then nothing for another month.

I worked all over the country with Danny Davis, and a lot of other countries too. We worked a lot in Europe and even took that band to Saudi Arabia.”

Since retiring some time ago, Curtis has become a go-to-guy for serious collectors of prewar banjos.

While they were singing together, Montgomery remembers performing songs from Bluegrass Hootenanny on their stage show, especially Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms.

Thanks to Curtis McPeake and Melba Montgomery for sharing their reminiscences of Bluegrass Hootenanny, and to Carl Jackson and Charlie Cushman for their help in putting things together.

Flatt & Scruggs show poster

The passing of Earl Scruggs has brought a great many emotions to the fore, along with some wonderful memories from those who knew him, and those who have enjoyed his music over the years.

We’ve been fortunate to be able to share a few candid photographs of Earl from the Flatt & Scruggs days which, sadly, are relatively rare. Given that so much of the band’s touring was in rural areas prior to their increased visibility on television in the mid-1960s, and that film cameras were a costly luxury for country folks as a rule, that shouldn’t be a big surprise.

We have recently received this image of a Flatt & Scruggs show poster from Stephen O. Callaghan, who tells us he believes it was from 1957. One telling clue is found at the bottom of the poster which reads “NOTE: Earl Scruggs is now back with the show.”

Diligent students of Earl’s career will recall that he was in a serious auto accident in October of 1955 which took him off the road for nearly a year, making a January show in 1957 just about right for his return. Add to that the fact that January 2, 1957 was in fact a Wednesday, and it seems like Stephen is dead-on in suggesting that the poster is from that year.

During this absence, Curtis McPeake held the unenviable task of filling in for Earl Scruggs in the band.

Scruggs described the accident to Barry Willis for his book, America’s Music: Bluegrass, published in 1997 (now out of print).

“One Sunday afternoon, pretty late in the day, my brother called me and didn’t want to excite me too much, afraid I might drive too fast. Anyway, he said something was wrong with our mother. What had happened is she had had a stroke.

Back in those days, the only way you could get from here (Nashville) to Charlotte—and Charlotte’s about forty miles east of Shelby—you would have to catch a plane out of Atlanta. I believe you’d have to go Atlanta and change and go to Columbia, South Carolina, and change and go to Charlotte. That would take all day. And, of course, this being late Sunday afternoon we decided we’d just drive over ‘cause we could be over there by early breakfast the next morning by taking our time.

So we started drivin’ and we had gotten about fifteen miles east of Knoxville—I guess at the time that was during the two-lane highway days along 70 Highway—and we was on the straightest road between here and Shelby about three o’clock (my watch was broken at five minutes before three in the morning) there was a car came out of a side road [with a] boozed-up man and woman in it. That’s where it happened.

Luckily for us—we had two boys at the time Gary and Randy, they were two and six—one was on the pallet on the floor and one was layin’ in the back seat. This was before seat belts. And Buddy, when I hit that car—and everybody said I was drivin’ about 55—when I hit that car the seat stripped on the carriage. Louise knocked a hole in the windshield; she messed up her face real bad for several years and had a lot of plastic surgery done.

But it dislocated my hips and broke us up real bad. But we was young enough until after three months I had to have a metal hip put in and later have another metal hip put in. But everything came out real well, mainly because our two boys were not injured that much. And after enough years went by, we got to where we could get along all right even though we still have pain with it.”

Many thanks to Stephen Callaghan for sharing the show poster. Any readers who have photos, posters or any other Earl Scruggs memorabilia they would be willing to share, please contact us.

I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky #9

From October 1, 2010 through to the end of September 2011, we will, each day, celebrate the life of Bill Monroe by sharing information about him and those people who are associated with his life and music career. This information will include births and deaths; recording sessions; single, LP and CD release dates; and other interesting tidbits. Richard F. Thompson is responsible for the research and compilation of this information. We invite readers to share any tidbits, photos or memories you would like us to include.

October 9, 1927 – Curtis McPeake born Scotts Hill, western Tennessee, mid way between Nashville and Memphis. He worked for Bill Monroe in 1960 and 1961 and was featured on 18 recordings; those on Mr. Bluegrass (Decca DL-74080) and half of those on the Bluegrass Ramble album (Decca DL-74266).
October 9, 1954 Single released – Kentucky Waltz/Footprints in the Snow (Columbia 52021, 45rpm) *
October 9, 1954 Single released – Blue Moon of Kentucky/Blue Grass Special (Columbia 52022, 45rpm) *
October 9, 1954 Single released – Mansions for Me/Mother’s Only Sleeping (Columbia 54013, 45rpm) *

* These three singles were released simultaneously on Columbia’s Hall of Fame series.

“I am proud to have been a Blue Grass Boy for a short time. I have never worked for anyone quite like Bill but I enjoyed it and always had a lot of admiration and respect for the man and his music.”

Curtis McPeake