My Favorite Memories

Remembering my Friend, Bobby Osborne

1992

I first met Bobby in 1992 while attending the Old Joe Clark Bluegrass Festival in Renfro Valley, Kentucky. This was my first time attending a bluegrass festival and I was carrying around my first guitar for all the artists to sign. I had upgraded to a better instrument so this one was to become my wall-hanger filled with autographs. The festival had a heavy lineup including a teenaged Alison Krauss & Union Station, The Lost & Found, The New Coon Creek Girls, Mac Wiseman (who scolded me for not having strings on the guitar), saying, “Well string it up and learn to play it son!” 

Next to Mac was the Osborne Brothers. I first handed the guitar to Sonny; he wasn’t rude but was in the middle of telling a story to a group of musicians as he signed it and handed it off without even looking at me, laughing all the while. Then I came to Bobby. He could not have been nicer. He complimented the little stringless classical guitar and told me that it reminded him of his first guitar. By this time, I was hankering for my first mandolin. Bobby left a good first impression.

1997

It’s hard to imagine now, but only a few years after that first encounter, I was touring and recording with Larry Sparks & the Lonesome Ramblers, playing mandolin at many of the same festivals as the Osborne Brothers. I remember one time in the summer of 1997 at the Shriners Bluegrass Festival in Olive Hill, Kentucky, the Osborne Brothers closed the show after our set. I was hanging behind the stage and was in awe of the tone of Bobby’s mandolin. As they finished their encore Bobby came walking past me and I blurted out, “Hey Bobby, why don’t you give me that mandolin?” Chalk it up to my youthful ignorance with a side of cockiness, but this is when I first got the signature side-eye from Bobby. Always with a chuckle he would tell that story many times to my family, friends, and students in the coming years. The incident did, however, break the ice and during the following September festival in Beanblossom, Indiana, Bobby let me play his mandolin backstage for the first time. This was the start of our picking friendship. 

2004

As the years went on, I was continuing my stint with Larry Sparks on more recordings and personal appearances.  It was a good time to be a Lonesome Rambler as the band was playing many spots on the Grand Ole Opry and in 2004, while at the Ryman Auditorium, I had a nice picking session with Bobby.  During this time, I told him that I was planning to cut a mandolin record and he said he’d help in any way he could. I set a plan in motion and at that time the logical place to record was Jordan Studios near Cincinnati, Ohio, in Taylor Mill, Kentucky. I was comfortable with this studio as I had recorded there with Larry Sparks. The owner, Dennis Hensley, gave me some time options, and I’ll admit that I was concerned about getting Bobby Osborne (a star of the Grand Ole Opry) to travel from his home in Tennessee to the Cincinnati area just to record with me. I contacted him with a couple dates and he chose a time when he would already be in Kentucky, saying he would just get a hotel room and be there that morning. I feared that I was getting in over my head financially because we never discussed money for the agreement. 

Bobby showed up at our meeting place in a shiny black Lincoln Continental with his son, Bobby Osborne, Jr., riding shotgun.  Bobby Jr. had also brought along his newly acquired 1945 Martin D-28, so I recruited him for the session. We cut two songs; one that I had written and Bobby’s signature mandolin tune, “Cherokee Lady,” which turned out to be my favorite take of the two. I included it on my first self-released record entitled Scott Napier All Out Front. I had the most fun recording with Bobby.  He had a way of putting you at ease. It didn’t feel like a recording session, it just felt like we were casually picking on a porch. He did want to make sure I was satisfied with the music, and I remember him saying, “I’m here working for you.” 

It was an incredible experience and after we were finished, I asked him what I owed him.  He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I didn’t do it for that, whatever you give me is fine.” I’ll never forget how happy I was about the recording. I was so proud of it, and I asked him to put a quote on the back of the CD for me.  “Scott Napier is a good mandolin player, and he has a lot of knowledge and understanding about the instrument. He has good separation of his notes, and the tone he gets out of his mandolin fits his playing style very well. Scott is a clean-cut young player and deserves a lot of credit in that respect. Put these things together and you have a great person and certainly a great mandolin player in Scott Napier.” Bobby Osborne

2014

The morning sun pressed downward through the steep kudzu-capped hills on either side of the road as if it’s trying to protect the land from ultraviolet rays. The autumn glow worked its way through, descending onto town, bouncing from the bronze statue of the mounted frontier nurse, reflecting off the Main Street sign, “Welcome to Hyden.” Peering through branches of the red bud tree, it settles on Maple Street, casting upon a substantial sandstone structure and giving off a golden hue that’s interrupted by moving shades of deep red, penetrating the thick glass of the building housing the Kentucky School of Bluegrass & Traditional Music (KSBTM.) I look out to see Bobby Osborne parking his maroon Ford Mercury near the side entrance of the building. 

Bobby nods as I’m standing in front of the glass door.  Sporting a bright white ball cap which advertises a used car lot, along with his tinted wraparound sunglasses, he springs forth from the car and grabs his belongings. Bobby’s ready to start the day. “Scott! I hear you’re gonna be working with us, got your mandolin with you?” I push open the door as he passed, and I briskly walk to keep up as he settles in his office. He puts his mandolin case on the ledge of the windowsill, and it then becomes the focal point of the room. Bobby and I are catching up as we gaze in the direction of the instrument as if it were Excalibur about to be pulled from the stone. I turn to walk back down the hall as I hear the ringing of his Gibson F-5 mandolin. A smile broadened my face. 

2014

At the Kentucky School of Bluegrass and Traditional Music, Bobby would teach classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays each week during the semester. He would average ten to twelve students per week who would get one-on-one hour-long lessons on the mandolin.  I would block an hour with him on Tuesday nights to work on tunes, talk about teaching, or general discussions. I would sometimes interview him and record stories such as how he came to acquire his 1925 Gibson Fern mandolin, or I would help get questions answered for fellow writers who were working on books or articles that would benefit from his firsthand knowledge of the topic at hand. 

Bobby had a great memory for detail and he would often tell stories about his days playing with the Stanley Brothers. One story was how Carter Stanley took a liking to Bobby’s emerald green fingernail clippers and how Carter would complement them several times.  Then, Carter eventually announced that “He believed he’d just take those clippers,” and sure enough, they went missing (lots of pranks were made by traveling musicians at that time).  The following day, Bobby woke up extra early in the motel room and got the clippers back, never to be exposed again. I asked Bobby if he still had the clippers to which he replied, “I sure do.”

But don’t think that Bobby was just some walking relic of the past. He was very much of his time. He once talked of a certain booking agent he worked with in the 1990’s that he had to let go because, “He just couldn’t get with the times; he couldn’t even do emails.” Another time, after a late Tuesday night session I was leaving Hyden to go to Hazard to spend the night with my parents and Bobby had left out in front of me. I spotted his maroon Ford parked at a narrow spot on the side of the road in a dark, remote area. I pulled off behind him, wondering if he had car troubles.  He had his cap pulled down low over his face, and he stared hard through the rear view as I walked up to the car.  Once he saw that it was me, his mood changed and he yelled, “Scoot!” (His developing nickname for me). I asked if everything was okay to which he replied, “Oh yeah, you know this is the only spot between here and Hazard that I can get out a decent text.” Bobby was getting caught up on his social media DM’s. 

Another time I was finishing up a lesson with an elderly student and we were walking to the elevator.  Bobby fell in beside us as we walked. The student had a large folder full of song lyrics and he dropped them as he was getting into the elevator. Bobby quickly bent down to pick them all up and put them back in the folder before the elevator door closed.  He then said to me, “You know, I’ve always tried to be good to the older folks.” Bobby was several years a senior to this gentleman! Bobby just had this curious youthfulness about him that seemed to be ageless. 

2016

As our weekly mandolin sessions continued each Tuesday, I mentioned to my then-girlfriend, Lauren Price, about the possibility of studying one-on-one with Bobby and she jumped at the chance.  At that time, she was attending college in Morehead, Kentucky, so after her classes at Morehead were finished for the day, she would make the two-hour drive from Morehead to Hyden for the lessons. Lauren is a talented musician with a strong ear for melody, so it didn’t take long before the three of us were working on tunes together. Bobby loved to play the harmony parts.  I was adapting the tenor lines so Bobby would grab the baritone parts as we would work on the tunes in three-part harmony during our hour-long class time. After a few weeks we were getting faster at the arrangements and Bobby suggested that we record one and put it on the internet. I did just that! We started putting them up on my social media Facebook page on Tuesday nights at the end of our lessons. They were getting some good publicity and we felt that we should make it a weekly series, thus “Tremolo Tuesday” was born. 

The goal for the “Tremolo Tuesday” was to highlight Bobby in the classroom to give viewers proof that he did in fact show up weekly to work one-on-one at the school. When I first started working for the program people didn’t believe that he came for in-person lessons, so I’m proud to have exposed that. Bobby was so involved and personable, and that came through on the videos. The core trio was Bobby, Lauren, and me, but we’d sometimes bring in guest students such as fiddling Natalie Tomlinson and mandolinist Michael Johnson to complete the performances. It showcased how fun work can be for the students and it proved to be appealing to the folks that were watching. The messages would flood my inbox about how they wished they could sit together with Bobby and play mandolins together.

2017

From the requests by folks wanting to come to the school for this type of experience, we had thoughts of putting together an event where students could get with Bobby, Lauren, and myself in a mandolin camp. The original concept came from a camp at which I’ve taught in the past, the “Metamora Mandolin Gathering,” a one-day mandolin camp in Southern Indiana—think of it as a crash course series of workshops where everything is held in a single day, lunch is provided, and an informal jam/concert takes place at the end.  For our one-day event, we would re-create the experience of “Tremolo Tuesday” with a group of students learning lead, tenor, and baritone parts to a song that would be performed that night with Bobby on stage of Hyden’s Osborne Brothers Hometown Bluegrass Festival. We mapped out a plan, but what should we call it? Bobby was an old western movie fan, so we settled on the name Bobby Osborne’s Mandolin Roundup. 

The first Roundup was a success in the sense that we had a goal of twelve students, four students per instructor. We hit that mark and it was a good first effort. We had students from several states in attendance, Iowa and New York for example. Jon Mintzer, a mandolin student from New York City, attended every Roundup we had; he would bring his professional-grade camera along and document the events on film. Local bluegrass photographer Terry Vaught was also vital in capturing Roundup activity and was official photographer of the camp. We also collaborated with a local t-shirt maker on a limited run of shirts each year for the students. GHS strings came on board by providing participants with sets of Bobby’s signature mandolin strings, and Bobby would also throw in one of his personal mandolin picks for each student. One year, Bobby ran low on his picks and Allen Goins from Bluechip Picks made a one-time run of 25 Bobby Osborne signature mandolin picks as a donation. We also started using Tribune Show Posters to make annual Roundupposters which Bobby would autograph at the end of the day. 

Bobby dearly loved the Mandolin Roundup and as the years went on, the student number grew into the thirties. We added then-KSBTM faculty member Virgil Bowlin to help beginner students provide a rhythm section, and Bobby Osborne Jr. assisted with things such as hosting audio livestreams and playing backup guitar when needed. Perhaps my personal favorite Roundup was in 2019, when we had special guest Hershel Sizemore join us at instructor at the camp. Bobby and Hershel were long-time admirers of each other’s playing yet had never actually picked together before. It was a special day as students from all ages and walks of life were able to learn from those two masters.  

2018

The personal side of Bobby Osborne was thoughtful and giving of his time. He was keen to the notion of being used, yet if you were his friend, he would never deny a request within reason. One of the most genuine gestures came in the fall of 2018 when Bobby agreed to sing at mine and Lauren’s wedding. We chose the song “Walk Through This World with Me” and he worked it out and showed up in a black suit, played his mandolin, and sang the song beautifully. After the ceremony was over, he signed his lyric sheet to us and that it was the first wedding he’d ever been asked to sing at. 

A few weeks after this, he called me into his office at the school and gifted me a 1925 Hamilton 21 Jewel pocket watch and although he never really said, I thought of it as a wedding gift. Bobby was a great listener, and he would remember what he heard. One time I was looking at his fern and just said under my breath, “I’d like to get one of those mother of pearl truss rod covers for my mandolin,” (that’s an unmistakable feature on his mandolin) and a little while later, he brought me one he had tucked away for years. I had him sign and date the back of it and then I tucked it away for safe keeping. 

2020

The most challenging Roundup was in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. We were concerned for Bobby’s sake and wondered if a virtual version of the camp were possible. I proposed the question and with a resounding yes, we had the support to continue. I had a personal goal from the start to host at least five Mandolin Roundups if we could, and we didn’t want to stop before number four in 2020. Bobby Osborne Jr was back to the rescue with his social media skills, and the Roundup “Boot-up” addition was off and running!  

We condensed it into back-to-back individual sessions with each instructor working with all the students combined into one large group. Bobby came to the school to join us for a Zoom session, and everything went on as planned. The best thing about working through the virtual format was that many students who lived far away and could never attend the camp in person got to be part of the experience. Bobby was great at instructing virtually, and I was surprised to find out that he kept in touch with some of the virtual Roundupstudents throughout the year. It did, however, persuade him to continue his mandolin lessons for KSBTM on-line instead of coming back to Hyden in person pandemic-on. We did manage to create a handful of virtual “Tremolo Tuesday” videos post-pandemic as well. 

2023

Unknown to us at the time, but the last I would see Bobby in person was at the Kentucky School of Bluegrass & Traditional Music finale concert in May of this year. He was as spry as ever and stellar in his performance that evening. For most every finale showcase Bobby would come out at the end and sing a couple songs with all our students. Bobby, Lauren, and I would also do a mandolin trio as was our “Tremolo Tuesday” tradition.  After the show we all hung out in the green room, talked, told stories, had cake, and just enjoyed the time together. I wish I had a specific story to tell on the last time I was in his presence, but I can only say that we were comfortable together in a light-hearted mood over the room. The last thing Bobby said to me in person was, “What’s your plans for the summer?” I told him I’d like to spend more time at my log cabin near Natural Bridge State Park in Powell County, Kentucky. He said, “Well if I were you, I’d be doing the same thing.”

After Bobby’s passing, I was going through some of my belongings and came upon the mother of pearl truss rod cover he had given me seven years ago. I decided it was time to put it on my 1939 Gibson F-5, where it will remain from this point forward. It’s like having him in the room when I see it and it makes me smile. I think about all the times we’ve played our mandolins together, arranging and recording over one hundred Tremolo Tuesday videos; I think of the times he played my mandolin, the times he let me play his; little things he taught me on the mandolin—shortcuts to harmony playing, how to perfect slow tremolo and to start off lines with an upstroke to bring out the high notes first. Bobby was all about the high notes. 

One of the biggest honors of my life was being asked to play a mandolin piece at Bobby’s funeral. I chose my version of a tune I had played for him before, “How Great Thou Art.” With my pocket watch on my side and the experience mostly a blur, I felt his presence in the room and imagined him smiling at a mandolin being played. As the service drew to a close and pallbearers were called to make their way outside, I took my place in line. Stepping outside in the procession, the midday sun shone down across a field of marble and stone and against a blue canopy, covering a crowded host of family, friends, and musicians paying respect. Heads lowered, eyes squinting from the sun glaring against a bronze plate on the ground to the back of the tent, marking the graves of Bobby’s mother and father. The sun then reflected on a dangling ruby red earring. I pause; I think of the song, that voice. I’m transported to a vision of Hyden in the late 1930’s when Bobby first heard that song blasting from the hillside tavern’s jukebox. People are dancing, I smile. I look up to the sky. I know that with the music, all is right. Through the music, we have him forever.