Bluegrass From The Smokies

Al Weekley (“Big Al”) was born near the Ohio River in Ravenswood, West Virginia. Big Al first realized he wanted to be a part of the radio industry in 1987. The Bluegrass band, of which Al was a member, was invited to perform a live show at Ohio University’s radio station, WOUB FM. After the […]

Singer, songwriter Tyler Williams, born in central Ohio, is a young man with big dreams that started when he was just 2 years old. By the time he was 4, he began playing piano attracting the attention of everyone around him. Although Williams was born with Cerebral Palsy and became blind at infancy, he remained […]

Life is music… Share The Grass!! About Terry Brewer I grew up in a home where the family often played music on the radio, record players, or TV. Mama taught me to enjoy music at a very young age.   My mother grew up in Oklahoma, where she and her family lived in a home […]

In Loving Memory of Sweet Brenda Lawson: A Voice That Echoed Through Bluegrass The bluegrass world has lost one of its most cherished voices. Sweet Brenda Lawson, known to many as the heart behind the beloved radio show Sweet Brenda & Him, leaves behind a legacy woven with music, warmth, and unwavering dedication to the genre she […]

Dave has been interested in country and bluegrass music since the early 1960s. He first heard artists like Jimmy Rodgers, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzell, and Roy Acuff on the AFN (Armed Forces Network) that broadcasted into Western Europe from Germany. Later, he developed an interest in bluegrass after being […]

Jim Hughes has enjoyed Bluegrass festivals ever since his wife Jane first asked him along to the former Winterhawk weekend in New York during the mid-1970’s. Raising their two sons Chris and Ben on weekend getaways to see iconic Bluegrass bands during the 1990’s lead to finding friends in musicians and fans alike. Jim began […]

Rita Small is a passionate bluegrass enthusiast who discovered the genre around 2005. Despite considering herself a relative newcomer to the music, she has embraced it wholeheartedly. Over a decade ago, Rita received an invitation from a friend to a local public radio station in the Cincinnati area. There, she filled in for a DJ […]

Ed Asher, aka The Doctor, has worked in radio for several years. In 2008, following his successful career in Real Estate, Ed joined Country 929 WDHC in Berkeley Springs, WV, as a radio personality. He ran the afternoon drive shift each weekday and was also responsible for creating and producing a live show on Saturdays […]

Jeff grew up in suburban Detroit, Michigan. He first discovered bluegrass music during his sophomore year of college, and entirely by accident; none of his friends or family members ever knew such music existed. One summer Saturday afternoon, during a power outage following a thunderstorm, Jeff was tuning a transistor radio, trying to find a […]

Pre-Bluegrass Brett Smeltzer makes his home in Charles Town, WV just outside of Northern Virginia and Maryland. Though Brett’s earlier days of music influences was mostly Rock of the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s he later became a fan of 80’s Country music. But what caught Brett’s ear, to what would be the beginning of […]

Buford T., aka “Big Hoss,” has been doing radio since 2005. He took a break from radio in 2014, but since 2020, he’s been with The Bluegrass Jamboree.

Born in 1955, I grew up in a little town just outside of Dayton, Ohio, called Xenia, which became famous for being blown away in a 1974 tornado. While growing up, I would see shows like Hee Haw, Barn Dance, and, of all things, Lawrence Welk. However, I spent my formative years listening to Rock […]

The Bluegrass Jamboree is a dream come true for me. Not only can I share the music I love, but I also get to meet so many wonderful people along the way. How it all began: As the granddaughter of a well-known bluegrass DJ in Eastern North Carolina, I was familiar with bluegrass, but I […]

Roger D. Black fell in love with bluegrass music while attending the Atalaya Arts & Crafts Festival at Huntington Beach State Park just outside Myrtle Beach, S.C., in 2008. At the festival, there was a band that focused their attention on the music and inspired a long-lasting love of bluegrass and an unending curiosity to […]

Col Thomas D. Taylor, USAF Ret. worked all his life for public education as a teacher and college professor of sciences. Time invested was about 40 years each. Col Tom is married with two grown sons 56 and 58 YO and daughter 32. In addition, he has one grandson and a granddaughter due April 20. […]

Jay started his radio career on January 17, 1993, on AM WPTX radio in Lexington Park, Maryland, playing Bluegrass music for a 1-hour show he called “The Bluegrass Hour.” Nestled off the coast of the Chesapeake Bay, he changed the name of his show to “Bluegrass on the Bay” when Jay offered an additional hour […]

Learning to harmonize while listening to records on the family stereo system was only the beginning.  Passing out the songbooks at church to line up and sing in “the choir” was a golden opportunity for a young kid.  Being influenced by various genres in the 70’s was a free musical education for this Mississippi boy. […]

I was first introduced to bluegrass music in the 5th grade while living in Delavan, Illinois. After 9th grade, I moved to Decatur, Illinois, and became acquainted with Joe Singer of WHOW radio in Clinton. I would pull records for him and watch him ‘turn the dials.’ I started collecting 45s and albums when I […]

I have lived in Berea, Kentucky for the last twenty years and am a native of Tennessee.  I am married with two children and eleven grandchildren.  I retired from R J Reynolds Tobacco Company and  I am currently working as a courier. My life-long love of gospel music began as a child in church. Later […]

Jim’s love of music began at an early age, watching the joy on the face of his father as he played guitar and sang traditional country and gospel in the living room of their farmhouse in rural Alabama. At the age of 10, Jim found an old Hal Leonard guitar workbook, taught himself to read […]

Walter & Willa Volz, A little back ground how we got to this point. Growing up as a kid I always loved the picking of Flatt & Scruggs playing on the Beverly Hillbillies, but never knew there was an actual genre for this music. Tuning in to FM radio, rock & roll was what I […]

Tim grew up singing in church with his family in Western Kentucky and continues to play guitar and sing at his home church. Musically, Tim is involved in various ways. In 2010, he helped form a local band called Homemade Jam Band, and since then, his passion for performing, promoting, and producing music has only […]

Being a board member for the European World Of Bluegrass, an MC for the EWOB festival since 2013 and with 10 years under his belt in country and bluegrass radio Jos van der Lelie is firmly rooted in the European bluegrass scene. It all started growing up as a teenager, listening to his father’s record […]

I was born in Raleigh North Carolina and still live here.  My radio career and love for music started at an early age.  In 1974, still a teenager, a morning DJ at a small gospel station, WRNC 1240 AM, taught me the trade. After being on the air for just a short time, I got […]