The Tradition

C.J. Lewandowski of the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys says that at fifteen years old, when he met Bobby Osborne, one of his heroes, he would never have dreamed of the friendship that would develop between the two musicians. Over the years that followed, Lewandowski, also a mandolin player, learned from Osborne—music lessons and life lessons. In…

Queries  Q: Can you tell me who the pickers and singers were on the 1950s recordings of the Country Pardners? Jerry Steinberg, Salem, Virginia. A: The Country Pardners was a short-lived group that came together in 1955 and disbanded two years later. Bill Price, a mandolin player/tenor singer from North Carolina was the founder and…

Inventor—Entrepreneur—Musician—Songwriter—Community Servant—Mentor—Conservationist—Humanitarian Wayne Jerrolds grew up in a small farming community known as Burnt Church in the southern part of rural Hardin County, Tennessee (about 115 miles east of Memphis).  Savannah, Tennessee is the nearest town to this community.  When he was a young boy, Wayne and his brothers worked in the fields.  They cut…

Queries  Q: Do you know much (or anything) about the Armstrong Twins?  I recently heard a track on a radio program from an old LP. I know that Floyd died in 1994; I have made many attempts to discover when Lloyd died. I met Lloyd at IBMA Louisville in 1997 and we had a long…

Old Dominion Barn Dance  Multi-instrumentalist Matt Levine recently shared this photo of the Old Dominion Barn Dance that he won on eBay. He noted, “I actually got it pretty cheap. I usually don’t get photos on eBay, but I couldn’t pass that up.” From the looks of the various people in the shot, program attendees…

One day in 1953, Earl Scruggs answered a knock at the door of his suburban Nashville house. Standing there was a sixteen-year-old kid with a banjo and a grin as wide as the Mississippi River. It was Doug Dillard, and he wanted to know if Scruggs would sell him a set of “Scruggs tuners,” a…