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WPAQ-AM
WPAQ is an Americana, and Bluegrass-formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Mount Airy, North Carolina, serving the Piedmont of North Carolina and the Southside and Southwestern sections of Virginia. WPAQ is owned and operated by WPAQ Radio, Inc. History Ralph Epperson observed in 1948 that the popularity of old-time music was falling off, and one area radio station needed to take on the job of preserving it. As a child he enjoyed listening to distant AM radio stations, and in college he changed his major to radio technology. He worked for the United States Naval Research Laboratory before going into broadcasting, and he never dreamed he would own a radio station. But Epperson, his father, and cousin, literally built the new radio station, including the 305-foot tower still used over 65 years later. So much cursing took place that, according to Epperson, one minister said it would take a six-month revival meeting to make up for it. Fiddle player Benton Flippen help ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Airy, North Carolina
Mount Airy is a city in Surry County, North Carolina, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 10,611. History Mount Airy was settled in the 1750s as a stagecoach stop on the road between Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Galax, Virginia. It was named for a nearby plantation. Mount Airy was incorporated in 1885. The city's official seal was established in 1977, which depicts major industries that are home to Mount Airy including: furniture, textiles, and the granite quarry. In 1994, Mount Airy was named an All American City. The W. F. Carter House, William Carter House, Edgar Harvey Hennis House, William Alfred Moore House, Mount Airy Historic District, North Carolina Granite Corporation Quarry Complex, Renfro Mill, and Trinity Episcopal Church are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Geography Mount Airy is located at (36.5006, −80.6093), along the Ararat River, about 5 km (3 mi) south of the Virginia state line. The Unit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revival Meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held to inspire active members of a church body to gain new converts and to call sinners to repent. Nineteenth-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "Many blessings may come to the unconverted in consequence of a revival among Christians, but the revival itself has to do only with those who already possess spiritual life." These meetings are usually conducted by churches or missionary organizations throughout the world. Notable historic revival meetings were conducted in the US by evangelist Billy Sunday and in Wales by evangelist Evan Roberts. Revival services occur in local churches, brush arbor revivals, tent revivals, and camp meetings. Meetings A revival meeting usually consists of several consecutive nights of services conducted at the same time and location, most often the building belonging to the sponsoring congregation but sometimes a rented assembly hall, for more adequate space, to provide a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Jarrell
Thomas Jefferson Jarrell (March 1, 1901 – January 28, 1985) was an American fiddler, banjo player, and singer from the Mount Airy region of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains. Biography He was born in Surry County, North Carolina, United States. Although he made his living from road construction (operating a motor grader for the North Carolina Highway Department until his retirement in 1966), Jarrell was an influential musician, eventually attracting attention from Washington D.C. when he received the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship in 1982. That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA, and are considered the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Jarrell's style was notable for its expressive use of syncopation and sliding ornamentation, and he was adept at singing while playing. His formidable technique and rough timbre continue to influence modern aficionados of Appalachian old-time music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mac Wiseman
Malcolm Bell Wiseman (May 23, 1925 – February 24, 2019) was an American bluegrass and country singer. Early life He was born on May 23, 1925, in Crimora, Virginia. He attended school in New Hope, Virginia, and graduated from high school there in 1943. He had polio from the age of six months; due to his disabilities, he could not do field work and spent his time in childhood listening to old records. He studied at the Shenandoah Conservatory in Dayton, Virginia, before it moved to Winchester, Virginia, in 1960 and started his career as a disc jockey at WSVA-AM in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Music career His musical career began as upright bass player in the Cumberland Mountain Folks, the band of country singer Molly O'Day. When Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Bill Monroe's band, Wiseman became the guitarist for their new band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Later he played with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. In 1951, his first solo single, "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered", was relea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finger style of playing was radically different from the traditional way the five-string banjo had previously been played. This new style of playing became popular and elevated the banjo from its previous role as a background rhythm instrument to featured solo status. He popularized the instrument across several genres of music. Scruggs' career began at age 21 when he was hired to play in Bill Monroe's band, the Blue Grass Boys. The name "bluegrass" eventually became the eponym for the entire genre of country music now known by that title. Despite considerable success with Monroe, performing on the Grand Ole Opry and recording classic hits such as "Blue Moon of Kentucky", Scruggs resigned from the group in 1946 because of their exhausting t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lester Flatt
Lester Raymond Flatt (June 19, 1914 – May 11, 1979) was an American bluegrass guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs in the duo Flatt and Scruggs. Flatt's career spanned multiple decades, breaking out as a member of Bill Monroe's band during the 1940s and including multiple solo and collaboration works exclusive of Scruggs. He first reached a mainstream audience through his performance on "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", the theme for the network television series ''The Beverly Hillbillies'', in the early 1960s. Biography Flatt was born in Duncan's Chapel, Overton County, Tennessee, United States, to Nannie Mae Haney and Isaac Columbus Flatt. In 1943, he played mandolin and sang tenor in The Kentucky Pardners, the band of Bill Monroe's older brother Charlie. He first came to prominence as a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1945 and played a thumb-and-index guitar style that was in part derived from the playing of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ralph Stanley
Ralph Edmund Stanley (February 25, 1927 – June 23, 2016) was an American bluegrass artist, known for his distinctive singing and banjo playing. Stanley began playing music in 1946, originally with his older brother Carter Stanley as part of The Stanley Brothers, and most often as the leader of his band, The Clinch Mountain Boys. He was also known as Dr. Ralph Stanley. He was part of the first generation of bluegrass musicians and was inducted into both the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor and the Grand Ole Opry. Biography Stanley was born, grew up, and lived in rural Southwest Virginia—"in a little town called McClure at a place called Big Spraddle, just up the holler" from where he moved in 1936 and lived ever since in Dickenson County."Old-Time Man" interview by Don Harrison June 2008 ''Virginia Living'', p. 55. The son of Lee and Lucy Stanley, Ralph did not grow up around a lot of music in his home. As he says, his "daddy didn't play an instrument, but so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Del Reeves
Franklin Delano Reeves (July 14, 1933 – January 1, 2007) was an American country music singer, best known for his "girl-watching" novelty songs of the 1960s including "Girl on the Billboard" and "The Belles of Southern Bell". He is also known for his 1968 trucker's anthem, "Looking at the World Through a Windshield", which demonstrated he was capable of more than just novelty songs. He became one of the most successful male country singers of the 1960s. Early life Reeves was born in Sparta, North Carolina, United States, the youngest of 11 children. He was named after U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. While his older brothers served in World War II, Reeves learned how to play their musical instruments. By age 12, Reeves began performing on the ''Merry Go Round Show'' on local radio station WPAQ. After high school, Reeves briefly attended Appalachian State College (now University). He later enlisted in the United States Air Force, stationed at Travis Air Force Base i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Jimmy Dickens
James Cecil Dickens (December 19, 1920 – January 2, 2015), better known by his stage name Little Jimmy Dickens, was an American country music singer and songwriter famous for his humorous novelty songs, his small size (4'11" 50 cm, and his rhinestone-studded outfits (which he is given credit for introducing into live country music performances). He started as a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1948 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1983. Before his death he was the oldest living member of the Grand Ole Opry. Early life Dickens was born in Bolt, West Virginia. He began his musical career in the late 1930s, performing on radio station WJLS in Beckley, West Virginia, while attending West Virginia University. He soon quit school to pursue a full-time music career, traveling the country performing on local radio stations under the name "Jimmy the Kid". Career In 1948, Dickens was heard performing on WKNX, a radio station in Saginaw, Michigan, while on l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grandpa Jones
Louis Marshall Jones (October 20, 1913 – February 19, 1998), known professionally as Grandpa Jones, was an American banjo player and "old time" country and gospel music singer. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.McCall, Michael; Rumble, John; Kingsbury, Paul, eds. (1 February 2012). The Encyclopedia of Country Music (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 269–270. . Biography Jones was born in the small farming community of Niagara in Henderson County, Kentucky, the youngest of 10 children in a sharecropper's family. His father was an old-time fiddle player, and his mother was a ballad singer and herself adept on the concertina. His first instrument was guitar. Ramona Riggins, one of several women who began to gain some recognition in a musical form long dominated by men was Grandpa's wife and musical partner of over thirty years.Jones, Grandpa (1939). Family Album honographbr>Leon McIntyre Collection, 1970-2011 Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Monroe
Charlie Monroe (July 4, 1903 – September 27, 1975) was an American country and bluegrass music guitarist. Charlie performed with his brother, Bill, as part of the Monroe Brothers. He later formed his own group, Charlie Monroe & the Kentucky Pardners. Biography Charlie Monroe was born on his family's farm in Rosine, Kentucky; he was the older brother of the mandolin player Bill Monroe. His sister Bertha also played guitar, and brother Birch, fiddle. Charlie, Birch, and Bill played together as a band in the middle of the 1920s, and played on radio starting in 1927. Soon after this, however, their parents died and Charlie and Birch moved to Detroit and then Indiana to find work, eventually taking jobs in oil refineries near Hammond, Indiana. Bill followed them into the oil business in 1929, and the three continued performing in small-time and private venues. The Monroe Brothers Tom Owen, a musician on the WLS Barn Dance radio program, heard them play at a dance club in 1932 ... [...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] |
