Lee Sexton (March 23, 1928 – February 10, 2021) was an American banjo player from
Letcher County, Kentucky
Letcher County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,548. Its county seat is Whitesburg. The county, founded in 1842, is named for Robert P. Letcher, Governor of Kentucky from 1840 to ...
. He began playing the banjo at the age of eight and was proficient in the two-finger picking and "drop-thumb" (clawhammer) traditional styles of east Kentucky. He also sang and played fiddle. His ''Whoa Mule'' album includes recordings from a 1952 home recording with fiddler Fernando Lusk to recordings made in 2001. Four solo songs also appear on
Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fou ...
album ''Mountain Music of Kentucky.''
In 1999
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Paul Patton presented Lee with the Governor's Award in the Arts.
Career
Lee Sexton worked as a field hand to earn the $1 he needed to buy his first banjo when he was eight years old. He received lessons from his father and uncles, one of whom was Morgan Sexton, the revered banjo player with a liquid and serene two-finger picking style. Growing up, Lee worked in the mines during the week and played his banjo on weekends, usually for house parties or corn shuckings. When Lee was 23 years old his right hand was crushed in a mining accident, forcing him to start playing the banjo with a new style of
drop thumbing that he developed himself. By the 1940s he had migrated his career to the radio. In 1988, he released his EP titled "Whoa Mule"; it was later turned into a CD in 2004.
Family
Lee Sexton was married to Opal Sexton. Together they had no children, but Lee had 2 sons from a previous marriage. The oldest, Johnny, is an ordained minister. The youngest, Phillip, continued to pursue a musical interest with his father until his untimely death in September 2000.
Documentary
An immersive, feature-length documentary film,
Linefork'' was made with Lee and his wife Opal in their home and community. The film was directed by
Jeff Silva and Vic Rawlings and is a project of
Sensory Ethnography Lab. The working title for the film was ''Lee and Opal''.
Lee can also be seen playing banjo and discussing his coal-mining days in the BBC documentary "Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus".
References
External links
''Linefork'' documentary film website with trailer, bonus footage, and background information*
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1928 births
2021 deaths
American banjoists
Bluegrass musicians from Kentucky
Country musicians from Kentucky
People from Letcher County, Kentucky
Place of birth missing
Place of death missing
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