If you're already a subscriber, please share "Bluegrass on the Tube" with friends.
_______________________________________________________________
About this artist:
. Red Allen - Born February 12, 1930
Harley (“Red”) Allen in 1949 sought factory work in Dayton, Ohio. Playing bars
at night, he made his first recordings on the Kentucky label, teaming in 1956 with
Bobby and Sonny Osborne to record for MGM Records.
Billed as The Osborne Brothers And Red Allen, their MGM sessions yielded a
number of singles and one of the genre’s early and classic LP’s, released in
1959 and titled “Country Pickin’ And Hillside Singin’”. The 1956 Osborne/Allen
masters are regarded today as among the most important in bluegrass music
because they constitute the earliest and many say the finest significant group of
commercial sides in the high lead vocal harmony format and received national
distribution on a major record label. Therefore, Red Allen was one of the
creators of that sound.
He began a solo career in 1958 as Red Allen & The Kentuckians. His
considerable pride and total confidence on stage were part of a professional
persona that made him an unpredictable and colorful entertainer. He was also
one of the idiom’s best rhythm guitarists and purest lead and tenor vocalists.
Over a period of more than three decades he recorded fully a dozen albums,
some with his musically talented sons, for labels that included the Starday,
Folkways, County, King Bluegrass, Lemco, Melodeon and Red Clay record
companies.
Some of his ‘Signature’ songs were “Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes,” “Whose
Shoulder Will You Cry On?” and “(Is This) My Destiny.” Recording collaborators
through the years included Frank Wakefield, J.D.Crowe, Porter Church, Don
Stover, the Yates Brothers and David Grisman. In semi-retirement for a number
of years, he died April 3, 1993.