| The late guitarist Clarence White and his brothers Eric and Roland started the Kentucky Colonels in the mid-1950s in the Los Angeles area. Playing Progressive Bluegrass long before there was a name for it, the prodigiously talented group won numerous contests and appeared on several radio and television programs (including appearing as themselves on The Andy Griffith Show). The band recorded a number of albums in the early 1960s and their acclaim landed them a spot at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival. Much of the focus of the band has been placed on the guitar playing of Clarence White; he was a follower of Doc Watson's style, and he took that dazzlingly fast, percussively syncopated playing to a level that remains the standard today. After the band broke up in 1965, Clarence White went on to join the Byrds and became a guitar superstar before being fatally struck by a car in 1973. Brother Roland White is an acclaimed singer and mandolin player who is still in demand in the worlds of Bluegrass and country music. Find Kentucky Colonels cds and Kentucky Colonels records on BGO Records. |
