The McCormick Brothers

Though the McCormick Brothers never achieved the same level of recognition enjoyed by fellow 1950s country and bluegrass vocal groups such as the Stanley Brothers and the Louvin Brothers, they still delivered solid bluegrass performances during their comparatively brief existence and issued fewer recordings than the era’s more prominent acts. Lloyd McCormick and Kelly McCormick first performed together as a guitar-and-mandolin pair while still young, appearing on radio broadcasts across Kentucky and Tennessee. The group grew in the early 1950s when their younger sibling Haskel McCormick added banjo; at various times the lineup also featured cousins Hayden Clark on bass and Billy Clark on fiddle, followed by the addition of the youngest brother on bass, Dewel Bullington on fiddle, and later Charlie Nixon on Dobro.

Between the middle 1950s and the early 1960s the McCormicks cut sides for Hickory, the label operated by Fred Rose, who had co-founded the Nashville publishing firm Acuff-Rose alongside Roy Acuff. In an effort to increase commercial appeal they experimented with rockabilly numbers, yet they remain best known for the straightforward bluegrass material they recorded for Hickory, which alternated close harmony singing with instrumental passages. Their strongest seller proved to be the label’s 1954 debut single “Red Hen Boogie,” written by Charlie Louvin and Ira Louvin. After departing Hickory they recorded an album for Metromedia. In 2002 Varese Sarabande gathered eighteen tracks from their Hickory bluegrass singles onto the compilation The Very Best of the McCormick Brothers.