hypersongs

Jerry Douglas

An Ohio-born Dobro player known as Flux, a member of J. D. Crowe's New South, Boone Creek and Alison Krauss and Union Station, with a long solo career and the 2005 album The Best Kept Secret.

Warren, Ohio and the Country Gentlemen

Gerald Calvin Douglas was born in Warren, Ohio on May 28, 1956 (Encyclopedia.com says 1955). His father John, a steelworker, played bluegrass, and Douglas played guitar in his father's string band, the West Virginia Travelers, from 1969 to 1973. He began mandolin at five, and in 1963 saw a concert with Flatt and Scruggs, with Josh Graves on Dobro, and Roy Acuff, which inspired him to take up the Dobro; he adapted a six-string guitar first and got his first real Dobro about two years later. He has said he would wake up to Flatt and Scruggs every morning before school.

In summer 1973 he toured with the Country Gentlemen, joining full time in spring 1974 after high school and recording Remembrances and Forecasts (Vanguard, 1974). In January 1975 he guested on J. D. Crowe and the New South (Rounder 0044) and then joined, and from 1975 to 1978 he was in Boone Creek with Ricky Skaggs. In 1978 he moved to Nashville to record with Buck White and his daughters, the Whites, and his first solo album, Fluxology, came out on Rounder in 1979. He won a Grammy in 1983 for "Fireball" with the New South.

Session player, Union Station and the Earls

His Dobro on Gary Morris's "Leave Me Lonely" and Randy Travis's "Diggin' Up Bones" in the mid-1980s brought mainstream Nashville attention, and he became a studio session player and producer; the Hall of Fame counts over 2,000 recording projects. Strength in Numbers (1989, The Telluride Sessions) was with Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Sam Bush and Edgar Meyer, and The Great Dobro Sessions (1994) won a Grammy. His solo albums include Fluxedo (1982), Under the Wire (1986), Slide Rule (1992), Restless on the Farm (1998), Lookout for Hope (2002), The Best Kept Secret (2005), Glide (2008), Traveler (2012) and What If (2017). In 1998 he joined Alison Krauss and Union Station, billed as featuring Jerry Douglas, and became co-director of the Transatlantic Sessions with Aly Bain; he played on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack (2000), which won the 2001 Grammy for album of the year.

The Jerry Douglas Band formed in 2006, and the Earls of Leicester, a Flatt and Scruggs tribute, in 2013 or 2014, whose debut won a Grammy in 2015 and the IBMA album of the year. He produced Molly Tuttle's Crooked Tree and City of Gold, and has recorded with Garth Brooks, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Phish, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Mumford and Sons, James Taylor and John Fogerty. He received an NEA National Heritage Fellowship in 2004, was the Country Music Hall of Fame's artist in residence in 2008, and entered the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2024; he was CMA musician of the year in 2002, 2005 and 2007, and Wikipedia counts 14 Grammy wins from 32 nominations as of 2021, a number that differs by source. AllMusic called him perhaps the finest Dobro player in contemporary acoustic music, and he told the NEA he tried to keep the dobro from being a limited instrument.

Albums

  • The Best Kept Secret 2005 · Koch

    His 2005 album: eleven pieces with Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Bill Frisell, John Fogerty and Alison Krauss as guests.

Songs

  • Who's Your Uncle? The Best Kept Secret · 2005

    The second track of The Best Kept Secret, with Bela Fleck on banjo and Sam Bush on mandolin, whose title nods to Uncle Josh Graves.

Sources

  1. Jerry Douglas (musician), Wikipedia
  2. Gerald Calvin Jerry Douglas, International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame
  3. Jerry Douglas, National Endowment for the Arts
  4. Douglas, Jerry, Encyclopedia.com