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Eddie Adcock | |
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Background information | |
Born | June 21, 1938 |
Origin | Scottsville, Virginia, U.S. |
Genres | Bluegrass (with jazz, country, folk and rock influences) |
Occupation(s) | Touring and recording instrumentalist / singer, band leader, writer, arranger, record producer / engineer, inventor, ETC |
Instruments | Banjo, guitar, bass, mandolin |
Years active | 1949–present |
Eddie Adcock (born June 21, 1938) [1] is an American banjoist and guitarist.
His professional career as a five-string banjoist began in 1953 when he joined Smokey Graves & His Blue Star Boys, who had a regular show at a radio station in Crewe, Virginia. Between 1953-57, he founded or played with different bands in Virginia and Washington DC, such as his Virginia Playboys, Smokey Graves and the Blue Star Boys, Bill Harrell, and Mac Wiseman's Country Boys. Bill Monroe offered a job to Adcock in 1958, and he played with the Blue Grass Boys until he could no longer survive on bluegrass' declining pay due to the onslaught of Elvis Presley who cornered all music markets. Adcock continued in music and also returned to working a variety of day jobs including auto mechanic, dump truck driver, and sheet metal mechanic. Then Charlie Waller and John Duffey asked Adcock to join their struggling new band, The Country Gentlemen, whereupon their vocal and instrumental synergy prompted a reinvention and elevation of their sound, soon revitalizing bluegrass music itself. [2] They are the first group to be inducted, in 1996, into the International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Fame as a band entity.
Adcock has performed with his wife Martha since 1973 in bands II Generation - the first definitively newgrass group - then as Eddie & Martha Adcock, country rock band Adcock, bluegrass' Talk of the Town, The Masters, the Country Gentlemen Reunion Band, and the Eddie Adcock Band, as well as with country outlaw David Allan Coe. Most recently he tours almost exclusively with wife Martha and calls Lebanon, Tennessee his home. Eddie belongs to a number of business organizations, including IBMA and the Folk Alliance. He has served on the board of directors of the IBMA, Tennessee Banjo Institute and others. Eddie and Martha also founded and ran Adcock Audio, a large, state-of-the-art sound company, serving bluegrass-related festivals from the early 1970s until 2006, and from that time until the present have also recorded and produced themselves and others both outside and in-house at their own SunFall Studio.[ citation needed ]
Learning to play on numerous instruments brought into the home by an older brother, young Eddie, with his brother Frank, played and sang as a duo in local churches and on radio stations in nearby Charlottesville. Eddie sold a calf he raised to buy his first banjo as a young teenager and immediately began touring regionally with Smokey Graves. His hobbies were boxing and drag-racing cars. As a racer, Adcock racked up 34 straight wins with his car, which he named Mr. Banjo; he also set two track records at Manassas, Virginia. He also performed various blue-collar jobs to pay the rent. All the while, he played music at night. [3]
The Country Gentlemen originated in Washington, D.C. as the result of an automobile accident involving members of singer Buzz Busby's band, which included Eddie Adcock. To fulfill upcoming dates, member Bill Emerson called other musicians to step in; and due to the injured members' long recovery times the substitute band decided to stay together, soon naming themselves the Country Gentlemen. The band’s original members were Bill Emerson on banjo and baritone vocals, Charlie Waller on guitar and lead vocals, John Duffey on mandolin and tenor vocals, and Larry Lahey on bass. Soon after Adcock's arrival the band settled into an undeniably synergistic lineup consisting of Adcock, Waller, and Duffey, with Tom Gray on bass.[ citation needed ] This particular lineup, with Adcock serving as sparkplug, became known as the 'classic' Country Gentlemen, the team who drove the bluegrass sound and repertoire to new levels of experimentation, expertise, and excitement. During his tenure with the Country Gentlemen, Adcock adapted thumbstyle, or "Travis-style", guitar finger picking and pedal steel guitar playing to the banjo, which remain unique innovations on the instrument. In addition, his driving, percussive and syncopated jazz-based single-string, soulful string-bending, and lush chordal approaches were at the heart of the group's new-form bluegrass instrumental style, as developed in the interplay between Adcock's mind-blowing fireworks-like innovations, Duffey's jazzy mandolin licks, and Waller's forceful guitar rhythm. Additionally, Adcock's powerful, assertive baritone singing also set a new standard in bluegrass trio singing and became an much-emulated model. The Country Gentlemen's style and repertoire fundamentally changed bluegrass, and the group was notably the first newgrass-slanted band and arguably the forerunner of modern bluegrass as a whole.
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In 1970 Eddie left The Country Gentlemen and moved to California, where he formed a country-rock band called The Clinton Special. While he performed with the group he used the pseudonym Clinton Codack. Returning east and forming II Generation, he met Martha Hearon [4] in 1973; they would marry three years later and have remained partners in music and life, garnering fans and great acclaim while touring worldwide in nearly a dozen countries from Europe to Japan. The dynamic duo of Eddie and Martha Adcock has become known as “the biggest little band in Bluegrass”. Cashbox magazine and Billboard magazine have both named them “one of the Bluegrass circuit's top acts”. Eddie and Martha have recorded a number of well-received albums on several labels and concentrate on performing as a duo, as well as playing some concerts with bassist Tom Gray.[ citation needed ] Eddie and Martha, AKA The Adcocks, have appeared on Austin City Limits , Song of the Mountains, Grassroots to Bluegrass, Ernest Tubb's Midnite Jamboree, TNN's 'Nashville Now' and Wildhorse Saloon, and a host of NPR specials, as well as syndicated, Internet, and local TV and radio shows worldwide. Their video Dog aired on TNN, CMT, and CNN.[ citation needed ]
Eddie did several "Classic Country Gentlemen" reunion concerts with Waller, Duffy, and Tom Gray. In 1989, they recorded and released the album "Classic Country Gents Reunion" featuring many of their old hits.
In October 2008, concerns about hand-tremors, which could have compromised his performing career, led to Adcock having deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A local anesthetic having been used during the surgery so that he could remain conscious, he was able to play banjo during the procedure in order to check the effectiveness of the treatment in progress. [5] The surgery is the first to have been performed on a musician for the purpose of restoring his professional-level playing ability.
Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Like mainstream country music, it largely developed out of old-time string music, though in contrast, it is traditionally played exclusively on acoustic instruments and also has roots in traditional English, Scottish and Irish ballads and dance tunes, as well as in blues and jazz. It was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe, including 5-string banjo player Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Monroe characterized the genre as "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's a part of Methodist, Holiness and Baptist traditions. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound."
The Seldom Scene is an American bluegrass band that formed in 1971 in Bethesda, Maryland. The band's original line-up comprised John Starling on lead vocals and guitar, Mike Auldridge on Dobro and baritone vocals, Ben Eldridge on banjo, Tom Gray on double bass, and John Duffey on mandolin; the latter three also provided backing vocals. Together they released their debut studio album, Act I, in 1972, followed by both Act II and Act III in 1973.
Charles Otis Waller was the lead singer and guitarist for the bluegrass band The Country Gentlemen. Waller was involved with The Country Gentlemen for 47 years. As a member of The Country Gentlemen, Waller was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1996 and the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame in 2009.
New Grass Revival was an American progressive bluegrass band founded in 1971, and composed of Sam Bush, Courtney Johnson, Ebo Walker, Curtis Burch, Butch Robins, John Cowan, Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn. They were active between 1971 and 1989, releasing more than twenty albums as well as six singles. Their highest-charting single is "Callin' Baton Rouge", which peaked at No. 37 on the U.S. country charts in 1989 and was a Top 5 country hit for Garth Brooks five years later.
The Country Gentlemen was a progressive bluegrass band that originated during the 1950s in the area of Washington, D.C., United States, and recorded and toured with various members until the death in 2004 of Charlie Waller, one of the group's founders who in its later years served as the group's leader.
Doyle Wayne Lawson is an American traditional bluegrass and Southern gospel musician. He is best known as a mandolin player, vocalist, producer, and leader of the 6-man group Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. Lawson was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2012.
Missy Raines is an American bassist, singer, teacher, and songwriter. She has won 10 International Bluegrass Music Awards for Bass Player of the Year. Missy Raines was the first woman to win IBMA Bass Player of the Year award. She won 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Country Songs, Old and New is the debut album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1960 and reissued in 1991.
Folk Songs & Bluegrass is the second studio album by the progressive bluegrass band The Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1961 and reissued in 1988. Considered one of the best and classical records by the group, it features their 1st classic lineup with Charlie Waller, John Duffey, Tom Gray and Eddie Adcock.
On the Road is a live album by the bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1963. It continues to offer some of the best collection of songs by the first classic lineup of the group. The album originally contained 13 songs, selection from 2 concerts in 1962 and 1963. In 2001, Smithsonian Folkways re-released the album as a CD with 6 bonus tracks, recorded at Carnegie Hall on September 16, 1961.The album offers blend of folk and bluegrass music, while expanding compositions of Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley as well as traditional songs to the more progressive bluegrass sound.
Bluegrass at Carnegie Hall is an album of studio recordings by the progressive bluegrass band The Country Gentlemen, released in 1962 on the Starday label and reissued in 1988. The only thing about this album that has anything to do with Carnegie Hall is the cover photo on the original Starday LP, showing the group on stage. Nevertheless, there are many classic tunes on the album from the group's Starday era. As for the actual Carnegie Hall concert, there are six cuts on the Smithsonian Folkways CD "The Country Gentlemen: On the Road"(SFW40133), which include the fine dobro playing of Kenny Haddock.
Hootenanny is an album by the American bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1963.
25 Years is a compilation album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, released in 1980 by Rebel Records. The compilation, made up of 24 tracks, aims to capture the first 25 years of the history of the band with all various incarnations of the Country Gentlemen.
Play It Like It Is is an album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1969. This album was the last for mandolinist John Duffey, founding member of the band.
Nashville Jail is an album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen — their first classic lineup (Waller-Duffey-Adcock-Gray). Recorded in 1964 when the band was with Mercury Records, the album was not released until 1990 by Copper Creek Records.
Classic Country Gents Reunion is an album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, released in 1989. The first classic lineup from the 60' reunites here to record this album.
Live From The Stage Of The Roanoake Bluegrass Festival is a live album by the progressive bluegrass band Country Gentlemen, recorded in 1967.
Bernarr Graham Busbice, known professionally as Buzz Busby, was an American bluegrass musician, known for his mandolin style and high tenor voice. He was nicknamed the "Father of Washington, D.C. Bluegrass".
James Arnott “Jimmy” Gaudreau is a singer and mandolinist playing traditional and progressive bluegrass music. He is best known for his solo albums, and his work with The Country Gentlemen, Tony Rice, and J. D. Crowe.