Del McCoury stood among bluegrass music’s foremost traditionalists, personifying the high lonesome sound for more than thirty years. Born Delano Floyd McCoury and raised in Bakersville, North Carolina, he moved with his family in 1941 to Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, where he began performing as a five-string banjo player with Keith Daniels & the Blue Ridge Ramblers. He later worked with Jack Cooke’s Virginia Mountain Boys in Baltimore.
A pivotal opening came in 1963 when Bill Monroe engaged the Virginia Mountain Boys for several engagements in New York. Impressed by the young banjoist, Monroe asked him to join the Blue Grass Boys. Soon after accepting, McCoury assumed lead vocal duties and switched to rhythm guitar. He cut a lone single with Monroe in early 1964, then left a month later to return home and marry.
After the wedding, McCoury and fiddler Billy Baker spent three months in California with the Golden State Boys. Back on the East Coast, he joined the Shady Valley Boys for performances and recordings. He departed that ensemble in 1967 to establish the Dixie Pals alongside Bill Emerson, Wayne Yates, and Billy Baker. McCoury & His Dixie Pals endured numerous personnel shifts yet remained active for more than two decades, releasing material on Rounder, Revonah, Leather, and Rebel. In 1987 the group became the Del McCoury Band when sons Ronnie (mandolin) and Robbie (banjo) joined with fiddler Tad Marks and bassist Mike Brantley.
The years after the band’s reconfiguration yielded a steady stream of Rounder albums. The ensemble fused the adventurous repertoire and arrangements of leading progressive bluegrass acts with the high lonesome aesthetic of the tradition. Early in 1999 the group reached fresh audiences by supporting singer-songwriter Steve Earle on the traditionally oriented album The Mountain. Around the same period McCoury and his sons left Rounder on good terms and signed with Ricky Skaggs’ Ceili label, which issued Family and Del and the Boys. The band continued with It’s Just the Night in 2003, The Company We Keep in 2005, the gospel-focused Promised Land in 2006, Family Circle in 2009, and Old Memories: The Songs of Bill Monroe in 2011.
