Formed in 1953 as a bluegrass sibling act, the Goins Brothers featured Melvin Goins—born Melvin Glen Goins on 30 December 1933 in Bramwell, West Virginia, USA, and responsible for guitar, bass fiddle, vocals, and comedy—alongside his brother Ray Goins, born Ray Elwood Goins on 3 January 1936 in the same town and specializing in banjo and vocals. Raised in a musical household, the pair absorbed influences from leading bluegrass performers who appeared locally. Melvin joined the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers during the late 1940s, and in 1951 his fifteen-year-old brother entered the same group. The siblings appeared on RCA Victor sides with the Fiddlers in 1952, yet the following year, after the band relocated to Detroit, they established a trio alongside fiddler Joe Meadows. Around 1954 the Fiddlers returned to West Virginia, prompting the Goins to undertake additional recordings and performances at venues such as WLSI in Pikeville, Kentucky, through 1955. They spent several years traveling independently before re-entering the Fiddlers’ lineup in 1961. That association lasted until 1964 and included Starday recordings plus regular television appearances in Bristol, Virginia. Ray stepped away from music in 1964, while Melvin performed with various bluegrass artists, notably Hylo Brown and the Stanley Brothers, for whom he supplied lead vocals, guitar, and comedy under the name Big Wilbur. Upon Ray’s return they launched the Goins Brothers band and began an extended run of bluegrass festival appearances—some promoted by Melvin—that extended into the 1990s. Their younger brother Conley eventually joined on bass, and Melvin’s wife Willa together with her three sisters, performing as the Woodettes, occasionally contributed harmony on gospel numbers. The band also played schools and colleges, and from the mid-1970s onward presented a weekly program on WKYH-TV in Hazard, Kentucky. Within those broadcasts Melvin and two fellow members, billed as the Shedhouse Trio, delivered cowboy and comedy songs. Their first recordings appeared on Rem in 1969, followed by albums on Jalyn, Jessup, Rebel, and Old Homestead. In the late 1980s they worked with Vetco and issued their own cassette releases, one of them captured live at the University of Chicago Folk Festival. Ray withdrew from performing in the late 1990s, yet Melvin carried on with a new ensemble, Windy Mountain, which issued the album Bluegrass Blues on Hay Holler in 1999.
