The world of bluegrass lost two legends over the last week

It’s the end of an era for the genre of bluegrass, says musician Ketch Secor.

Bobby Osborne of The Osborne Brothers died at the age of 91 on Tuesday, according to the Hazard Community and Technical College in Hazard, Ky., where he taught for several years. Just four days earlier, Jesse McReynolds of Jim & Jesse died at the age of 93, Rolling Stone reports.

Ketch Secor of bluegrass revival band The Old Crow Medicine Show says he was deeply inspired by both legends of the genre, and even had the opportunity to spend time and collaborate with McReynolds.

Secor spoke to As It Happens guest host Helen Mann on Friday. Here is part of their conversation. 

As someone who’s been playing music that draws from bluegrass traditions today, what has it meant to your community to lose both Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne within just a few days of each other?

It’s a real sign of the times that there is now no longer any living first witness to the birth of bluegrass. So from here on out, it’ll all be folks who either bridge that generation to the next, or are themselves secondhand witnesses to to this amazing musical art form that took so many American roots traditions to come together in the 1930s and ’40s with this unique American sound.

I understand when your band was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, Jesse McReynolds was the first one to welcome you. Tell me what you remember about 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 with it. His hands didn’t work as well as they had when he was a kid. But he still played on the Opry probably, you know, 50 times a year.

And I’d get to visit with him in his home and his wonderful wife. He lived out by the lake, way out of town, and just was a very kindly person.

He came from the coal bearing region of Southwest Virginia, and it had a profound effect on the kind of person he was. He was quiet. He was a little bit shy and reserved. But when he opened up his voice to sing and play, all of that passion came just pouring out.

And you had a chance to collaborate with Jesse McReynolds. I wonder what that experience must have been like for you, revering him as you did, and then getting to share a stage with him as well.

It was such a thrill to get to make music with him as a performer. You know, it was one thing to pick in the hallway or backstage at the Opry or up at his house. But bringing him onto the stage, it just felt like we were bringing out a patriarch of the genre.

The fact that he elected to come out with Old Crow Medicine Show made me feel so proud. It is a great honour when somebody who is a progenitor of the music that you love wants to come out with you and play on your show, you know, 50 years later and you’re, you know, a kid by respects — even though I’m pretty middle aged. 

I remember one time … we brought him back to Virginia and he drove the van the whole way. I mean, this was a guy in, you know, in his mid-to late-’80s who insisted I drive the band van to meet us up there.

And he drove through the night to open up for us, put together a band for it and everything. I’d like to think that it was people like me and and several others who convinced Jesse to stick around a few more years, because life has just been so enjoyable to keep playing music for him.

It might be hard for people to appreciate now, but both Jesse and Bobby were innovators. In reading the obituaries of these men, you know, they were actually rule breakers who kind of were criticised by bluegrass purists. Tell me how they shook up the music establishment.

I think Bobby Osborne and his brother Sonny really exemplify this.

Country music always wants to correct itself. It has sort of a meta property in which it’s always trying to determine whether it is doing right by its forebearers or wrong by them. You know, we pedal in nostalgia down in Nashville.

And by all accounts today, we would think of Bobby Osborne as a purist, as a traditionalist. But in the 1960s, when he came out with his brother and had electric bass and had snare drum and made records in a modern, sophisticated way and sang to college kids on college campuses across the country, that was a pretty revolutionary move to take it to the campus from the barn dance.

With files from The Associated Press. Interview produced by Chris Trowbridge. Edited for length and clarity