Del McCoury
Encyclopedia
Delano Floyd McCoury is an American
bluegrass music
ian. As leader of the Del McCoury Band
, he plays guitar and sings lead vocals along with his two sons, Ronnie McCoury
and Rob McCoury, who play mandolin and banjo respectively. In June 2010, he received a National Heritage Fellowship
lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts
and in 2011 he was elected into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
Blue Grass Boys in 1963, with whom he first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry
. McCoury briefly appeared with the Golden State Boys in 1964 before taking a series of day jobs in construction and logging, while continuing to work as an amateur musician in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
In the 1980s his sons began performing with him. Fiddler Tad Marks
and bass player Mike Brantley joined McCoury's group in early 1990s. McCoury's group toured widely throughout the US. They relocated to Nashville, Tennessee
as they began to attract attention. Fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Mike Bub joined in 1992. Alan Bartram joined the band as bassist in 2005. McCoury became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in October 2003.
McCoury was also one of many performers at The Clearwater Concert
at Madison Square Garden on May 3, 2009. The event celebrated the 90th birthday of Pete Seeger
.
McCoury has influenced a great number of bands, including Phish
, with whom he has shared the stage several times, and who have covered his songs. He has also performed with The String Cheese Incident and Donna the Buffalo
, and recorded with Steve Earle
. McCoury has covered songs by artists as diverse as The Lovin' Spoonful
, Tom Petty
, and Richard Thompson. McCoury has appeared at festivals including Bonnaroo, High Sierra
, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
, and the Newport Folk Festival
. His television appearances include Late Night with Conan O'Brien
and The Late Show with David Letterman. Del has a very enthusiastic fan base, known as the Del-Heads.
In October 2009, The Del McCoury Band began offering fans recordings of their performances on USB flash drives available immediately after their concerts.
In June 2010, McCoury received a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts
in the field of folk and traditional arts, including a stipend of $25,000.
, Maryland, held at the Allegany County Fairgrounds
Awards, including Entertainer of the Year four consecutive times (nine total). McCoury has also won IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year four times. In 2004 he was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy Award
for It's Just The Night, and in 2006 he won his first Grammy Award, in the same category, for The Company We Keep.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
bluegrass music
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
ian. As leader of the Del McCoury Band
Del McCoury Band
The Del McCoury Band is a bluegrass band. Originally Del McCoury and the Dixie Pals with Del on guitar and his brother Jerry on bass, the band went through a number of changes until the 1980s when the band solidified its line-up, adding McCoury's sons, Ronnie and Robbie on mandolin and banjo,...
, he plays guitar and sings lead vocals along with his two sons, Ronnie McCoury
Ronnie McCoury
Ronnie McCoury is a mandolin player, singer, and songwriter born in 1967. He is the son of bluegrass musician Del McCoury, and is best known for his work with the Del McCoury Band. He has also recorded several solo albums....
and Rob McCoury, who play mandolin and banjo respectively. In June 2010, he received a National Heritage Fellowship
National Heritage Fellowship
The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts...
lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
and in 2011 he was elected into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
Career
McCoury has had a long career in bluegrass. Although originally hired as banjo player, he sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar for Bill Monroe'sBill Monroe
William Smith Monroe was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader...
Blue Grass Boys in 1963, with whom he first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry
Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...
. McCoury briefly appeared with the Golden State Boys in 1964 before taking a series of day jobs in construction and logging, while continuing to work as an amateur musician in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
In the 1980s his sons began performing with him. Fiddler Tad Marks
Tad Marks
Tad Marks is an American fiddler.He spent his youth in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He studied music composition and arts at Penn State University,won numerous awards for fiddling, and is currently a violin repairman and bluegrass /folk fiddler in the Baltimore/Washington DC area.Marks has performed and...
and bass player Mike Brantley joined McCoury's group in early 1990s. McCoury's group toured widely throughout the US. They relocated to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
as they began to attract attention. Fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Mike Bub joined in 1992. Alan Bartram joined the band as bassist in 2005. McCoury became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in October 2003.
McCoury was also one of many performers at The Clearwater Concert
The Clearwater Concert
The Clearwater Concert was a concert that took place on May 3, 2009 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The concert, a celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday, raised funds for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Seeger's environmental advocacy orginazation.The concert was billed as The...
at Madison Square Garden on May 3, 2009. The event celebrated the 90th birthday of Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
.
McCoury has influenced a great number of bands, including Phish
Phish
Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...
, with whom he has shared the stage several times, and who have covered his songs. He has also performed with The String Cheese Incident and Donna the Buffalo
Donna the Buffalo
Donna the Buffalo is a band from Trumansburg, New York. They play both originals and covers....
, and recorded with Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....
. McCoury has covered songs by artists as diverse as The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
, Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
, and Richard Thompson. McCoury has appeared at festivals including Bonnaroo, High Sierra
High Sierra Music Festival
High Sierra Music Festival is a multi-day music festival held in Quincy, California, a mountainous area about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada.The festival is held each year the weekend of July 4...
, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, or HSB for short is an annual free music festival held the first weekend of October in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. From its outset, the festival has been subsidized by San Francisco venture capitalist Warren Hellman. The first festival was held in 2001, originally...
, and the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...
. His television appearances include Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...
and The Late Show with David Letterman. Del has a very enthusiastic fan base, known as the Del-Heads.
In October 2009, The Del McCoury Band began offering fans recordings of their performances on USB flash drives available immediately after their concerts.
In June 2010, McCoury received a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
in the field of folk and traditional arts, including a stipend of $25,000.
DelFest
In 2008, Del McCoury started DelFest, an annual bluegrass festival in CumberlandCumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a city in the far western, Appalachian portion of Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Allegany County, and the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, and the metropolitan area had a...
, Maryland, held at the Allegany County Fairgrounds
Allegany County Fairgrounds
The Allegany County Fairgrounds is located just west of Cumberland, Maryland along McMullen Highway. Throughout the year the fairground holds musical concerts, car races, and private events. Once a year the Allegany County fair is held on the grounds, called the Allegany County Fair and AgExpo....
Del McCoury
| Year | Album |
|---|---|
| 1968 | I Wonder Where You Are Tonight |
| Del McCoury Sings Bluegrass | |
| 1971 | Livin' on the Mountain |
| Collector's Special | |
| 1972 | High on a Mountain (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals) |
| 1974 | Our Kind of Grass (Rebel SLP-1569) |
| 1975 | Del McCoury and the Dixie Pals (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals - Revonah 916) |
| 1976 | Del McCoury (Rebel SLP 1542) |
| 1980 | Live in Japan (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals) |
| 1981 | Take Me To the Mountains (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals - Rebel REB 1622) |
| 1983 | The Best of Del McCoury and the Dixie Pals (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals - Rebel REB 1610) |
| 1985 | Sawmill (Del McCoury and The Dixie Pals - Rebel REB 1636) |
| 1987 | The McCoury Brothers (The McCoury Brothers) |
| 1988 | Don't Stop the Music |
| 1992 | "Blue Side of Town" |
| 1993 | "A Deeper Shade of Blue" |
| 1996 | "Cold Hard Facts" |
| 1998 | Del Doc & Mac Del Doc & Mac Del Doc & Mac is the title of a recording by American folk music artists Doc Watson, Del McCoury and Mac Wiseman, released in 1998.-History:All three artists are well-known bluegrass musicians... (Mac Wiseman Mac Wiseman Malcolm B. Wiseman , better known as Mac Wiseman, is an American bluegrass singer, nicknamed The Voice with a Heart. The bearded singer is one of the cult figures of bluegrass.... , Doc Watson Doc Watson Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded... & Del McCoury) |
| 1999 | "Family" |
| For the Love of God, Man, Let Your Sons Sing or Something! (Ronnie McCoury) | |
| 2001 | "Del and the Boys" |
| 2003 | "It's Just the Night" |
| 2004 | Classic Bluegrass (Del McCoury & The Dixie Pals) |
| High Lonesome and Blue | |
| 2005 | Company We Keep |
| 2007 | Little Mo'McCoury (Ronnie McCoury backed by Del McCoury Band) |
| 2008 | Moneyland |
| 2009 | Celebrating 50 Years |
| Family Circle |
Awards
Del McCoury has won 31 International Bluegrass Music AssociationInternational Bluegrass Music Association
The International Bluegrass Music Association, or IBMA, is a trade association to promote bluegrass music.Formed in 1985, IBMA established its first headquarters in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1988 they announced plans to create the International Bluegrass Music Museum as a joint venture with...
Awards, including Entertainer of the Year four consecutive times (nine total). McCoury has also won IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year four times. In 2004 he was nominated for the Best Bluegrass Album Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for It's Just The Night, and in 2006 he won his first Grammy Award, in the same category, for The Company We Keep.
International Bluegrass Music Association Awards
- 1990 Male Vocalist of the Year – Del McCoury
- 1991 Male Vocalist of the Year – Del McCoury
- 1992 Male Vocalist of the Year – Del McCoury
- 1994 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 1994 Album of the Year – A Deeper Shade of Blue; Del McCoury
- 1996 Instrumental Group of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 1996 Entertainer of the Year – Del McCoury
- 1996 Male Vocalist of the Year – Del McCoury
- 1997 Instrumental Group of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 1997 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 1997 Album of the Year – True Life Blues – The Songs of Bill MonroeBill MonroeWilliam Smith Monroe was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader...
; Sam BushSam BushSam Bush is an American bluegrass mandolin player considered an originator of the Newgrass style.- History :...
, Vassar ClementsVassar ClementsVassar Clements was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical...
, Mike Compton, Jerry DouglasJerry DouglasJerry Douglas may refer to:*Jerry Douglas , actor, who was on The Young and the Restless for 25 years*Jerry Douglas, country/bluegrass musician*Jerry Douglas , director and writer of adult films such as, Score...
, Stuart DuncanStuart DuncanStuart Duncan is a bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. Born in Quantico, Virginia and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band, he has been a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band since 1985, and is a much-in-demand session musician...
, Pat Enright, Greg Garing, Richard GreeneRichard Greene (fiddle player)Richard Greene is a violinist and "one of the most innovative and influential fiddle players of all time".-Biography:...
, David Grier, David GrismanDavid GrismanDavid Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...
, John HartfordJohn HartfordJohn Cowan Hartford was an American folk, country and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore...
, Bobby HicksBobby HicksBobby Hicks is a Grammy Award bluegrass fiddler and a professional musician with more than fifty years of experience.Hicks was born in Newton, North Carolina and learned to play the fiddle before he was 9 years old. He attended several fiddlers conventions and at the age of eleven, he won the...
, Kathy Kallick, Laurie LewisLaurie LewisLaurie Lewis , is an American bluegrass musician.- History :Lewis fell in love with American folk music as a teenager, at the sunset of the 1960s folk revival. She says of the Berkeley Folk Festivals where she first caught the folk bug:"Oh, it was so exciting...
, Mike Marshall, Del McCoury, Ronnie McCouryRonnie McCouryRonnie McCoury is a mandolin player, singer, and songwriter born in 1967. He is the son of bluegrass musician Del McCoury, and is best known for his work with the Del McCoury Band. He has also recorded several solo albums....
, Jim Nunally, Scott Nygaard, Mollie O'Brien, Tim O'BrienTim O'Brien (musician)Tim O'Brien is an American country and bluegrass musician. In addition to singing, he plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and mandocello...
, Alan O'Bryant, Herb PedersenHerb PedersenHerb Pedersen is an American musician, guitarist, banjo player, and singer-songwriter who has played a variety of musical styles over the past forty years including country, bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, folk, folk rock, country rock, and has worked with numerous musicians in many different...
, Todd PhillipsTodd PhillipsTodd Phillips is an American screenwriter and film director. He is best known for directing the comedy films Road Trip, Old School, The Hangover, and Due Date.-Early life:...
, John Reischman, Peter Rowan, Craig Smith, Chris ThileChris ThileChristopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...
, Tony TrischkaTony TrischkaTony Trischka is an American five-string banjo player.-Biography:Tony Trischka was born in Syracuse, New York, and graduated from Syracuse University with a B.A in Fine Arts, and was inspired to play the banjo in 1963, listening to the Kingston Trio's "Charlie and The MTA". Trischka was a...
, Roland WhiteRoland WhiteRoland White is an American bluegrass music artist, performing principally on the mandolin.-Biography:At an early age, White formed himself, his two brothers and his sister into a bluegrass band which performed locally...
. - 1998 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 1999 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 2000 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 2002 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 2002 Song of the Year – 1952 Vincent Black Lightning; The Del McCoury Band (artists), Richard John Thompson (writer)
- 2003 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 2004 Entertainer of the Year – The Del McCoury Band
- 2004 Album of the Year – It’s Just the Night; The Del McCoury Band
External links
- Del McCoury Band official website
- Discography at Discography of Bluegrass Sound Recordings