The Country Gentlemen Tribute Band has announced a new member, Taylor Parks from Modest Town, VA, who joins them on bass.
The Tribute Band was formed by former Country Gentlemen bassist Bill Yates towards the end of his life. When his former bandmate Charlie Waller died, the voice of The Country Gentlemen for nearly 50 years, Bill started the Tribute Band to keep that sound in front of contemporary audiences. Yates was the initial lead singer for the group, a task that fell to their guitarist Mike Phipps when Bill passed in 2015.
Mike’s singing so strongly resembles Waller’s that audiences are often shocked when they first see and hear the Tribute Band. From the start Dave Propst has played mandolin and sung tenor. These days banjo chores are handled by long time pro Lynwood Lunsford, and they have recently added Darren Beachley on reso-guitar and vocals.
Taylor comes to the group from his home on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where his dad is also a bluegrass musician. Taylor started out as a banjo player at only eight years of age, and picked up bass in his teens. His first professional job in bluegrass was on banjo with Josh Grigsby & County Line in 2022.
Phipps welcomes him into the group unreservedly.
“We are very pleased to have Taylor join our Country Gentlemen Show full time. He’s a great musician and a fine young man. His first love is the banjo, and some of you may have seen him on the road with Jeff Parker and Company, but he is a great bass player as well and can sing most any part.”
Here’s video of the band at Mt. Harmony UMC in Owings, MD last month, with Parks on bass.
The band is in the process of morphing their name from The Country Gentlemen Tribute Band, which admittedly is a mouthful, to The Country Gentlemen Show, for which stage MCs all over the country will surely offer their profound thanks. I suspect they will readily answer to either, as their latest album, Yesterday And Tomorrow, uses the original name that Bill Yates gave them. They are now not only performing songs that the Gentlemen recorded back in the day, but also new songs in that same style.
Visit them online to see where you can catch the Show this summer.
