All in the Family

Leslie Riddle
This African-American guitarist and singer was a friend of the Carter family and was a frequent dinner guest in their home. He helped A. P. Carter locate obscure songs, brought material from his repertoire to the A. P. Carter Family, and taught blues guitar styles to hugely influential guitarist Maybelle Carter.

Jimmie Rodgers
A former railroad man, "The Father of Country Music" was influenced by the music of African-American railway workers with whom he worked as a young man. He composed numerous songs, frequently utilizing verses and ideas from songs performed by black artists, and set the stage for the explosive growth of country music.

Louis Armstrong
This trailblazing jazz innovator, widely beloved singer, and brilliant entertainer collaborated with Jimmie Rodgers ("Standing on the Corner") performed pieces later adopted by western swing and bluegrass--from "Back Home In Indiana," to "Bugle Call Rag"--and recorded his own country music album. The bluesy flavor of Armstrong's jazz is still embodied in music played today.

Bob Wills
"The King of Western Swing," fused black and white concepts in his distinctive, and highly successful music. Wills’ western swing blended jazz, blues, Appalachian dance tunes, and Hawaiian-inspired steel guitar with popular and country songs. Wills hits from "San Antonio Rose" to "Steel Guitar Rag" (based on black guitarist Sylvester Weaver’s "Guitar Rag") have been re-recorded by numerous country and bluegrass artists.

Bessie Smith
"The Empress of the Blues," was a major force in the rise in popularity of African-American blues during the 1920s. Bob Wills idolized her and adapted several of her songs. (On Wills’ first recording opportunity, he chose to perform Bessie Smith’s hit "Gulf Coast Blues") In other blues songs recorded by Bessie Smith and her contemporaries would be performed, decades later, by various bluegrass artists.

Arnold Shultz
No recordings and only a single photograph of this elusive figure exist. Nevertheless, his music lives today in both bluegrass and country music. The blues Shultz flatpicked on the guitar inspired Bill Monroe (who considered him a friend and major influence). Additionally, the Kentucky guitarists from whom super-guitarist Merle Travis learned utilized ideas they heard in Arnold Shultz’ fingerpicking style. (Guitar giant Chet Atkins, in turn, based his widely-emulated style on that of Merle Travis.)

Bashful Brother Oswald (Pete Kirby)
For over half a century the Hawaiian-derived Dobro work of Bashful Brother Oswald backing country star Roy Acuff on the Grand Ole Opry embodied an enduring element of country music’s sound. As a young man Oswald learned from a slide guitarist, Rudy Waikiki, who came from Hawaii and played in the style pioneered by Joseph Kekuku.

Joseph Kekuku
Sounds from the Hawaiian Islands migrated to the mainland United States starting around the early 1900s, notably via the Hawaiian slide guitar style, a technique which is most often credited to Joseph Kekuku. The swooping sound of the Dobro, steel guitar, or resophonic guitar, as it has come to be known, has been used widely in popular music, ballroom orchestras, country music, western swing, and bluegrass.

Earl Scruggs
In the 1940s this unique genius of the five-string banjo introduced the revolutionary style which would forever define the sound of bluegrass music. The banjo--itself of African origin--was transformed, in Scruggs’ hands, into a virtuoso instrument. Folklorist Alan Lomax referred to him as "The Paganini of the Banjo." Earl Scruggs with his partner, Lester Flatt, recorded dozens of the songs and tunes which comprise today's bluegrass standards.

Uncle John Scruggs
An exponent of the African-American banjo tradition which stretches back in time for centuries and predates banjo playing by white settlers in the Appalachian region. We know Uncle John only from a brief 1920s film clip outside a sharecropper’s cabin, playing to an audience of delighted tiny children (Times Ain’t Like They Used To Be, Yazoo Video)). His energetic music, however, speaks volumes about the role of music in America.

Bill Monroe
The "Father of Bluegrass Music" built his new artistic creation on a dual foundation. One pillar was the Scots-Irish-derived dance music of his fiddling uncle, Pendleton Vandiver. The other was the blues--much of which he learned from his friend, the gifted black musician, Arnold Shultz. A remarkable number of the important figures in bluegrass music learned their craft as members of Bill Monroe’s band, the Blue Grass Boys.

Norfolk Jazz and Jubilee Quartet
In the 1920s and 1930s this energetic group recorded more than 140 songs exemplifying the small group harmony style
that served as the basis for various country hits and bluegrass gospel favorites. The NJ&JQ’s classic recordings included songs--such as "I Am a Pilgrim," "Cryin’ Holy,", etc.—which were later embraced by country and bluegrass artists.

Rufus "Tee Tot" Payne
An African-American street musician, Rufus Payne was Hank Williams’ first mentor on the guitar. As a youth, Hank followed Payne around, periodically paying him fifteen cents or so for a lesson. Said Hank, "All the training I ever had was from him." No pictures of Payne are known to exist—thus the figure shown is just a representation.

Elvis Presley
The young country singer who became the central figure in the rock and roll revolution began his career by recording an uptempo Arthur Crudup blues entitled "That's All Right Mama" and a reworking of Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon Of Kentucky." Presley gladly acknowledged his great debt to African-American music, and especially to Crudup.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
A Mississippi-born black blues singer, who learned guitar at the age of thirty-two, Crudup had a string of rhythm-and-blues hits. However, due to unscrupulous practices by those in the music industry, received very little compensation. Crudup's music, however, reached Elvis Presley at a deep level, and provided a lifelong influence.

Browns Ferry Four
Country stars Merle Travis, Rabon and Alton Delmore, and Grandpa Jones combined their talents in this gospelrecording group during the 1940s. Their popular sound owed much to earlier African-American quartets, and can be heard echoed in subsequent gospel recordings, especially in bluegrass music.

Hank Williams
In his short lifetime Hank Williams contributed a major legacy of songs, simply crafted, yet unforgettable to millions. His compositions, several of which crossed over as pop hits, were often suffused with the imprint of the blues. They ranged from the sad ("Weary Blues From Waiting"), to the upbeat ("Hey Good Lookin’") to gospel "I Saw the Light", to the whimsical "Jambalaya." As author Colin Escot put it, he "provided a soundtrack" for the lives of millions.