Composed

BMI’s database credits J.D. Crowe with six published compositions, co-compositions, and arrangements including:

  • “Bear Tracks”
  • “Black Jack”
  • “Crowe on the Banjo” (an arrangement of “Bugle Call Rag”)

Early Influences

  • Ernest Tubb, Esco Hankins, and other country artists of the late 1940s
  • Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys
  • Scotty Moore (Elvis Presley’s guitarist)

Came to Fame With

  • Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, 1956-1961

Performed With

  • Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, summer 1954, 1956-1961
  • Mac Wiseman & the Country Boys, summer 1955
  • J.D. Crowe & the Kentucky Mountain Boys, 1961-1973
  • J.D. Crowe & the New South, 1972-present
  • Bluegrass Album Band, 1980-1990 (six recording projects and occasional performances)

By the Way

  • Based for most of his more than half-century career in the city of his birth: Lexington, Kentucky.
  • Initially aspired to be an electric guitarist, with Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours.
  • J.D.’s baritone voice blends so well with other singers that it adds strong notes without standing out.
  • While starring with Jimmy Martin on the Louisiana Hayride, J.D. worked in a gas station to supplement his income.
  • Crowe’s rare vocal solos, never recorded, included occasional Little Richard covers on Sunny Mountain Boys concerts in the late 1950s.

Led the Way

  • One of the first disciples of Earl Scruggs to make a lasting impression on bluegrass banjo playing.
  • A member of the classic edition of Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys while still a teenager, J.D. Crowe was held up by Martin as the model for all his subsequent banjoists.
  • An exemplary bandleader who fostered the talents of many successful artists, including Doyle Lawson, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Keith Whitley.
  • Helped to revitalize the bluegrass genre with songs and styles adapted from rock, rhythm and blues, country, and folk music sources.
  • Banjo player of the year in 1971, 1994, and 2004.
  • Grammy winner for “Fireball” (1983), Country Instrumental of the Year.
  • Bluegrass Hall of Fame, 2003
  • Numerous other awards and honors

Composed

BMI’s database credits J.D. Crowe with six published compositions, co-compositions, and arrangements including:

  • “Bear Tracks”
  • “Black Jack”
  • “Crowe on the Banjo” (an arrangement of “Bugle Call Rag”)

Early Influences

  • Ernest Tubb, Esco Hankins, and other country artists of the late 1940s
  • Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys
  • Scotty Moore (Elvis Presley’s guitarist)

Came to Fame With

  • Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, 1956-1961

Performed With

  • Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, summer 1954, 1956-1961
  • Mac Wiseman & the Country Boys, summer 1955
  • J.D. Crowe & the Kentucky Mountain Boys, 1961-1973
  • J.D. Crowe & the New South, 1972-present
  • Bluegrass Album Band, 1980-1990 (six recording projects and occasional performances)

By the Way

  • Based for most of his more than half-century career in the city of his birth: Lexington, Kentucky.
  • Initially aspired to be an electric guitarist, with Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours.
  • J.D.’s baritone voice blends so well with other singers that it adds strong notes without standing out.
  • While starring with Jimmy Martin on the Louisiana Hayride, J.D. worked in a gas station to supplement his income.
  • Crowe’s rare vocal solos, never recorded, included occasional Little Richard covers on Sunny Mountain Boys concerts in the late 1950s.

Led the Way

  • One of the first disciples of Earl Scruggs to make a lasting impression on bluegrass banjo playing.
  • A member of the classic edition of Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys while still a teenager, J.D. Crowe was held up by Martin as the model for all his subsequent banjoists.
  • An exemplary bandleader who fostered the talents of many successful artists, including Doyle Lawson, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Keith Whitley.
  • Helped to revitalize the bluegrass genre with songs and styles adapted from rock, rhythm and blues, country, and folk music sources.
  • Banjo player of the year in 1971, 1994, and 2004.
  • Grammy winner for “Fireball” (1983), Country Instrumental of the Year.
  • Bluegrass Hall of Fame, 2003
  • Numerous other awards and honors

From the Archives

J.D Crowe at the Berkshire Mountains Festival in Ancramdale, New York late 1970's. Photo by Ron Petronko.

From the Archives: Paul Williams, J.D. Crowe and Jimmy Martin in 1958 at the WWVA Package Show in Ottawa Auditorium at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa Ontario, Canada. Photo by Ron Petronko.

From the Archives: Country and Western Magazine out of Japan. Volume 71 Oct., 1975 Featuring: J. D. Crowe and The New South. Donated by Mr. Masaaki Yoshimura.

“Southern California and the rock scene have provided them with some of their most requested numbers: ‘Sin City,’ and ‘Devil in Disguise’…. Their fresh and novel approach comes as a relief to bluegrass fans, who’ve survived a long time just on the original greats and their imitators.”
Fred Bartenstein, from “A New Wind Blowing: J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys,” Muleskinner News, November-December, 1970.
“If [my band members] want to go out on their own, then that’s their privilege. Anybody that does that, I hope they have a lot of success. I feel it looks good to me, or the group, to have some guy out of the group leave and do well.”
Quoted in “J.D. Crowe and the New South: An Interview by Fred Bartenstein,” Muleskinner News, July, 1975.
“I’m not sure they realize how much it takes and what you have to sacrifice, the frustrations you go through. A lot of people won’t do it, and in this day and time you can hardly afford to do it. But the groups that work for that ‘band sound’ will be the ones that are remembered.”
Leon Smith in “Talking With the Stars: Two Interviews from a ‘Bluegrass Hornbook,’” Bluegrass Unlimited, July, 1981.
close