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Benny Martin
Benny Edward Martin (May 8, 1928 – March 13, 2001), was an American bluegrass fiddler who invented the eight-string fiddle. Throughout his musical career he performed with artists such as the Bluegrass Boys, Don Reno, the Smoky Mountain Boys and Flatt and Scruggs, and later performed and recorded with the Stanley Brothers, Hylo Brown, Jimmy Martin, Johnnie and Jack, and the Stonemans, among others. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Biography Born in Sparta, Tennessee, United States, his father and two of his sisters played music professionally. From childhood, he learned the fiddle taught to him by Carl Alverson, Sr., of Sparta and ukulele, as well as the guitar and in his early teens left home to go to Nashville to pursue a full-time career as a country musician. Martin was working at radio station WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee in 1948 when he was asked to replace Bill Monroe's fiddler Chubby Wise, who was going to leave the Blue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparta, Tennessee
Sparta is a city in and the county seat of White County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 5,001 in 2020.U.S. Census website , United States Census Bureau. Accessed: 14 March 2016. The flows through the city. Seven sites in Sparta are listed on the . History Sparta was established in 1809 as a county seat for White County, which had been created in 1806. The city was named after the ancient Greek city-sta ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Stonemans
Ernest Van "Pop" Stoneman (May 25, 1893 – June 14, 1968) was an American musician, ranked among the prominent recording artists of country music's first commercial decade. Biography Born in a log cabin in Monarat (Iron Ridge), Carroll County, Virginia, United States, near what would later become Galax, Virginia, Stoneman was left motherless at age three and was raised by his father and three musically inclined cousins, who taught him the instrumental and vocal traditions of Blue Ridge mountain culture. He became a singer and songwriter, and proficient musician on the guitar, autoharp, harmonica, clawhammer banjo, and jaw harp. When he married Hattie Frost in November 1918, he entered another musically involved family. He and Hattie had 23 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood: *Eddie Lewis (deceased 2001) *Irma Grace (deceased 2003) *John Catron (deceased 2001) *Pattie Inez "Patsy" (deceased 2015) *Joseph William (Billy) (deceased 1990) *Jack Monroe (deceased 1992) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans in the United States. The banjo is frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, and has also been used in some rock, pop and hip-hop. Several rock bands, such as the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and the folk culture of rural whites before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like biguine, calypso and mento. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five (10 strings) and six (12 strings) course versions also exist. There are of course different types of strings that can be used, metal strings are the main ones since they are the cheapest and easiest to make. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. There are many styles of mandolin, but the three most common types are the ''Neapolitan'' or ''round-backed'' mandolin, the ''archtop'' mandolin and the ''flat-backed'' mandolin. The round-backed version has a deep bottom, constructed of strips of wood, glued tog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie Andrews, Louis Armstrong, Gene Autry, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Leonard Bernstein, Beyoncé, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Blue Öyster Cult, David ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Ole Opry
The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a division of Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc.), it is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history. Dedicated to honoring country music and its history, the Opry showcases a mix of famous singers and contemporary chart-toppers performing country, bluegrass, Americana, folk, and gospel music as well as comedic performances and skits. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of radio and internet listeners. In the 1930s, the show began hiring professionals and expanded to four hours. Broadcasting by then at 50,000 watts, WSM made the program a Saturday night musical tradition in nearly 30 states. In 1939, it debuted nationally on NBC Radio. The Opry moved to a permanent home, the Ryman Audi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful. In 1952, Hank Williams told Ralph Gleason, "He's the biggest singer this music ever knew. You booked him and you didn't worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God." Acuff began his music career in the 1930s and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group, the Smoky Mountain Boys. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s, he remained one of the Opry's key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. In 1942, Acuff and Fred Rose founded Acuff-Rose Music, the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company, which signed such art ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chubby Wise
Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise (October 2, 1915 – January 6, 1996) was an American bluegrass fiddler. Originally starting out playing the banjo and guitar, Wise began playing fiddle at age 12, working locally in the Jacksonville area. He joined the Jubilee Hillbillies in 1938, then began playing with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1942, including dates at the Grand Ole Opry. He worked with Monroe through 1948, then played with Clyde Moody. He also played with the York Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, and Connie B. Gay. In 1954, Wise became a member of Hank Snow's Rainbow Ranch Boys, again appearing at the Grand Ole Opry; he remained with the group until March 1970. Alongside this he worked as a session musician with Mac Wiseman and Red Allen, among others. Wise returned to Florida in 1984 and went into semi-retirement, though he continued to tour and record occasionally, such as with the Bass Mountain Boys in 1992. He joined producers Randall Franks and Alan Autry for the '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Monroe
William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, who named their group for the bluegrass of Monroe's home state of Kentucky. He described the genre as "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound." Early life Monroe was born on his family's farm near Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children of James Buchanan "Buck" and Malissa (Vandiver) Monroe. His mother and her brother, James Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish and English heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill was resign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Country Music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, old-time, and American folk music forms including Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, and the cowboy Western music styles of Hawaiian, New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country. Country music often consists of ballads and honky-tonk dance tunes with generally simple form, folk lyrics, and harmonies often accompanied by string instruments such as electric and acoustic guitars, steel guitars (such as pedal steels and dobros), banjos, and fiddles as well as harmonicas. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history. The term ''country music'' gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to '' hillbilly music'', with "country music" being used today to describe many styles and subgenres. It came to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the fourth most populous city in the southeastern U.S. Located on the Cumberland River, the city is the center of the Nashville metropolitan area, which is one of the fastest growing in the nation. Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville seceded with Tennessee during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederacy to be taken by Union forces. After the war, the city reclaimed its position and developed a manufacturing base. Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
