Beecher Ray "Pete" Kirby (December 26, 1911 – October 17, 2002), better known as Bashful Brother Oswald, was an American
country musician who popularized the use of the
resonator guitar and
Dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
. He played with
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown ...
's Smoky Mountain Boys and was a member of the
Grand Ole Opry
The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a divis ...
.
Though he released only a few recordings as a solo artist, he played as a
session musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
on numerous records, including the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1972 album ''
Will the Circle be Unbroken''.
Biography
Early years
Beecher Ray Kirby was born in rural
Sevier County, Tennessee in the
Great Smoky Mountains. His father, G. W. Kirby, was an
Appalachian folk musician who played
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...
and banjo. As a child, Kirby learned to play guitar and banjo and sang
gospel music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...
. By his teens, he was playing for
square dance
A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documente ...
s.
In the late 1920s, Kirby followed the path of many people from the
Appalachia
Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...
n region and moved to the northern United States to find work. He went to
Flint, Michigan
Flint is the largest city and seat of Genesee County, Michigan, United States. Located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the region known as Mid Michigan. At the 2020 census, Flint had a population of 8 ...
and worked on the
Buick
Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...
assembly line. He lost his job, though, in the economic downturn of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
in the 1930s.
Kirby then returned to music, playing at informal square dance parties held in the homes of other transplanted southerners. It was at one such party that Kirby met a
Hawaiian guitarist named Rudy Waikiki.
"That was when I first heard someone play something like my style. He was a real Hawaiian boy, from over in the islands, and he was playing this way and I loved it. I'd go to them parties just to watch him play," Kirby said. "Then I'd go home and get my guitar and try to do the same thing. I was just playing a straight guitar and I had to raise the strings up, put a nut under the strings."
[Bashful Brother Oswald](_blank)
Brad's Page of Steel, retrieved 2007-10-09
With the
music of Hawaii, played by
Sol Hoʻopiʻi
Solomon Hoʻopiʻi Kaʻaiʻai ( ; 1902 – November 16, 1953) was a Native Hawaiian lap steel guitarist. A virtuoso, he was one of the most famous original Hawaiian steel guitarists, along with Joseph Kekuku, Frank Ferera, Sam Ku West and " ...
and other performers, gaining in popularity, Kirby bought his first
resonator guitar, an early
National model, and joined in the trend, playing in bars, cafes and beer gardens. He visited the
Chicago World's Fair in 1933, playing in clubs and gaining a following. Some of the clubs he played in were owned by
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...
.
Return to Tennessee
In a bid to find more steady work, Kirby moved to
Knoxville, Tennessee in 1934. Taking the stage name Pete Kirby,
he played resonator guitar with local bands, among them
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown ...
's Crazy Tennesseans, later to become the Smoky Mountain Boys. Acuff joined the
Grand Ole Opry
The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a divis ...
in 1938, and Kirby joined the Opry with Acuff's band on New Year's Day 1939.
[Humphreys, Mark. "Bashful Brother Oswald". In ''The Encyclopedia of Country Music''. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 30.]
It was with the Acuff band that Kirby became introduced as Bashful Brother Oswald, with Kirby posing as the brother of the band's banjoist, Rachel Veach ("Queen of the Hills"),
[Humphreys. p. 30.] so that it would appear to audiences that the unmarried Veach was being
chaperoned by a family member.
To fit his new persona, Kirby created the clownish Oswald character, wearing a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, tattered bib
overalls, oversized work shoes and adopting a braying laugh.
Featured on the nationwide broadcasts of the Opry, Oswald created a sensation playing his resonator guitar on such songs as "Old Age Pension Check". The instrument, developed in the late 1920s, was still relatively new. Oswald and the Acuff band were featured in a Hollywood film, ''Grand Ole Opry'' for
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures Corporation (currently held under Melange Pictures, LLC) was an American motion picture production-distribution corporation in operation from 1935 to 1967, that was based in Los Angeles. It had studio facilities in Studio City an ...
, which gave the instrument even greater exposure. "People couldn't understand how I played it and what it was, and they'd always want to come around and look at it."
In addition to his guitar and banjo playing, Oswald was a vocalist, and his tenor voice can be heard on Acuff's hit songs, "Precious Jewel" and "Wreck on the Highway".
Later years
Oswald began his career as a solo artist and
session musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
in the 1960s.
He released his self-titled debut album in 1962 on
Starday Records. He joined the
Rounder Records
Rounder Records is an independent record label founded in 1970 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Marian Leighton Levy, Ken Irwin, and Bill Nowlin. Focused on American roots music, Rounder's catalogue of more than 3000 titles includes records by Al ...
label in the 1970s, releasing around a half dozen albums over the years until his last recording, ''Carry Me Back'', in 1999.
His session work included working with the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on ''
Will the Circle Be Unbroken'', an album that paid tribute to the old-time, traditional country musicians of
Nashville, Tennessee, Roy Acuff,
Maybelle Carter,
Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-fin ...
,
Merle Travis
Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic expl ...
,
Doc Watson and others.
Bill Monroe declined to participate. Solo tracks by Kirby on ''Circle'' include "The End of the World" and his own composition, "Sailin' to Hawaii". Oswald was also present for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's follow-up album, ''
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two'' in 1989, singing backing vocals on the title track.
Oswald was the sole member of the 1939 Smoky Mountain Boys that still accompanied Acuff at the time of Acuff's death in 1992.
With former Smoky Mountain Boys bandmate Charlie Collins, Oswald formed the musical comedy duo "Os and Charlie", which was a fixture at the
Opryland theme park and on the
Grand Ole Opry
The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a divis ...
.
[Dobro legend Beecher Bashful Brother Oswald Kirby: 1911-2002](_blank)
, Gibson Guitars, retrieved 2007-10-09
He participated in 1994's ''
The Great Dobro Sessions
''The Great Dobro Sessions'' is a 1994 country music and bluegrass album featuring an all-star line-up of 10 American resonator guitar players, produced by dobro players Jerry Douglas and Tut Taylor.
The album won that year's Grammy Award for B ...
'' album, featured alongside such other resonator guitarists as
Mike Auldridge,
Jerry Douglas,
Josh Graves,
Rob Ickes,
Tut Taylor and
Gene Wooten.
Gibson Guitar Corporation
Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was forme ...
, owner of the
Dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
brand of resonator guitars, created a "Brother Oswald" signature series Dobro in 1995. The model has since been retired.
[Brother Oswald](_blank)
, Gibson Guitar Corporation, retrieved 2007-10-09
Oswald died on October 17, 2002, at his home in
Madison, Tennessee
Madison (originally Madison Station) is a former settlement, now a suburban neighborhood of northeast Nashville, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is incorporated as part of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.
The p ...
, at the age of 90.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oswald, Bashful Brother
1911 births
2002 deaths
People from Sevier County, Tennessee
American country guitarists
American male guitarists
Country musicians from Tennessee
Slide guitarists
Grand Ole Opry members
Starday Records artists
20th-century American singers
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from Tennessee
20th-century American male musicians