Remembering Everett Lilly, Richard Meyer & Doug Dillard

10 p.m. to Midnight Host: Steve Winters

The sad news continues to come in the world of folk and acoustic music. Bluegrass greats Everett Lilly and Doug Dillard passed away this week as well as New York singer-songwriter Richard Meyer.

Everett Lilly, together with his brother Burt (B.) and Don Stover and Tex Logan, is generally credited with introducing bluegrass music to New England after moving with B. to the Boston area in 1952 and joining up with Stover and Logan. The Lilly Brothers played throughout their native Appalachia in the 1940s, much in the style of the music of the Monroe Brothers and the Blue Sky Brothers. Prior to moving to Boston, Everett Lilly also played a two-year stint as the mandolin player and tenor singer with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys. He died at age 87.

Doug Dillard, 75, was one of the founding members of The Dillards, the bluegrass band that started in 1962 and introduced electric instruments to the genre. More so, Doug Dillard is fondly remembered as one of “The Darlings”, the backwoods family on TV’s Andy Griffin Show that came about after The Dillards skipped Nashville and took their music to Los Angeles. Dillard was renowned for his distinctive banjo playing. Both The Lilly Brothers and The Dillards are members of the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame.

Richard Meyer was a longtime colleague of the late Jack Hardy on the Greenwich Village folk music scene and Jack’s second in command at the Fast Folk Musical Magazine, which Meyer edited for more than 10 years. He was a superb songwriter and recorded solo projects for Shanachie as well as appearing on many Fast Folk and compilation albums.

I started the evening on a more joyous note with a lengthy set of polkas from different musical traditions.

  • Artist, "Title", Album, Label

  • Brendan Begley & Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, “The P&O Polka”, A Moment Of Madness, Irishmusic.Net

  • The Old Swan Band, “Walter Bulwer’s Polkas Nos. 2 & 1”, Stepping Up, Topic Records

  • Brian & The Mississippi Valley Dutchmen, “Laughing Concertina”, Deeper Polka, Smithsonian Folkways

  • The Goose Island Ramblers, “In Heaven There Is No Beer”, Deeper Polka, Smithsonian Folkways

  • Bela Fleck with John Hartford, “Polka On The Banjo”, The Bluegrass Sessions/Vol. 2, Warner Brothers

    ---------------

  • Lilly Brothers & Don Stover, “The Fox And Hounds”, “Barbara Allen”, Bluegrass At The Roots, Smithsonian Folkways

  • Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, “Jimmie Brown The Newsboy”, “Earl’s Breakdown”, Foggy Mountain Jamboree, Columbia

  • Lilly Brothers & Don Stover, “Wildwood Flower”, “Long Black Veil”, Feast Here Tonight!, Prestige/Folklore

    ---------------

  • Kenny Kosek, “Poppy’s Waltz”, Angelwood, Rounder

    ---------------

  • Richard Meyer, “Century’s End”, The Postcrypt, Prime CD

  • Richard Meyer, “Je Ne Sais Pas”, The Good Life!, Shanachie

  • Richard Meyer, “January Cold”, Fast Folk, Smithsonian Folkways

    ---------------

  • The Dillards, “Dooley”, Appalachian Stomp, Rhino

  • Doug Dillard, “Train 4500”, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”, The Banjo Album, Sierra

  • The Dillards, “Hamilton County Breakdown”, There Is A Time, Vanguard