Global Courant
It’s the end of an era for the bluegrass genre, says musician Ketch Secor.
Bobby Osborne of The Osborne Brothers passed away Tuesday at age 91, according to the Hazard Community and Technical College in Hazard, Ky., where he taught for years. Just four days earlier, Jesse McReynolds of Jim & Jesse passed away at the age of 93. That reports Rolling Stone.
Ketch Secor of bluegrass revival band The Old Crow Medicine Show says he was deeply inspired by both legends of the genre, even getting the chance to spend time and collaborate with McReynolds.
Secor spoke with guest presenter Helen Mann of As It Happens on Friday. Here’s part of their conversation.
As someone who plays music today that draws on bluegrass traditions, what has it meant to your community to lose both Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne within just a few days of each other?
It is a true sign of the times that there is now no living first witness to the birth of bluegrass. So from now on, it will all be people either bridging that generation to the next, or secondhand witnesses themselves to this amazing musical art form that took so many American roots traditions to come together in the 1930s and ’40s with this uniquely American sound.
Osborne performing at The Grand Ole Opry House 40th Anniversary March 15, 2014. (Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
I understand that when your tape was taken into the Grand Ole Opry, Jesse McReynolds was the first to welcome you. Tell me what you remember of your first encounters with him.
When I met Jesse it was about 15 years ago… and so he was an old man then… but spry and well behaved. His hands didn’t work as well as they did when he was a kid. But he still played on the Opry, probably, you know, 50 times a year.
And I could visit him at his home and his wonderful wife. He lived on the lake, way out of town, and was just a really nice person.
He came from the coal country of Southwest Virginia, and that had a big influence on the kind of person he was. He was silent. He was a bit shy and reserved. But when he opened his voice to sing and play, all that passion just came out.
And you had the chance to work with Jesse McReynolds. I wonder what that experience must have been like for you, to worship him as you did, and then share a stage with him.
It was so exciting to be able to make music with him as an artist. You know, it was one thing to choose in the hallway or backstage at the Opry or at his house. But when we brought him on stage, it just felt like we were bringing out a patriarch of the genre.
The fact that he chose to come out with Old Crow Medicine Show made me so proud. It’s a great honor when someone who’s a forerunner of the music you love wants to come out with you and be on your show, you know, 50 years later and you’re, you know, a kid by respect – even though I’m pretty middle aged.
McReynolds performs on The Grand Ole Opry with Old Crow Medicine Show on November 8, 2014 in Nashville, Tenn. (Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)
I remember one time… we drove him back to Virginia and he drove the van all the way. I mean, this was a guy from, you know, mid to late ’80s who insisted that I drive the band van to meet us there.
And he drove through the night to open up for us, put a band together and everything. I’d like to think it was people like me and a few others who convinced Jesse to stick around for a few more years because life was just so much fun to keep playing music for him.
Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor performs at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater in Nashville on May 12, 2016. (Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum)
It may be hard for people to appreciate now, but both Jesse and Bobby were innovators. Reading the obituaries of these men, you know, they were actually rule breakers who were more or less criticized by bluegrass purists. Tell me how they rocked the music establishment.
I think Bobby Osborne and his brother Sonny really exemplify this.
Country music always wants to correct itself. It has a kind of meta-trait in which it always tries to determine whether it is doing its ancestors good or bad. You know, we’re kicking down in nostalgia in Nashville.
And in all likelihood we would consider Bobby Osborne today as a purist, as a traditionalist. But in the 1960s when he came out with his brother and had an electric bass and snare drum and made records in a modern, sophisticated way and sang to college kids on college campuses across the country, that was quite a revolutionary move to make it record. to campus from the peasant dance.
With files from The Associated Press. Interview produced by Chris Trowbridge. Edited for length and clarity
