Lee Sexton (March 23, 1928 – February 10, 2021) was an American banjoist from

Letcher County, Kentucky Letcher County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 21,548. Its county seat is Whitesburg, Kentucky, Whitesburg. It was created in 1842 f ...

. He began playing the banjo at the age of eight and was proficient in the two-finger picking and "drop-thumb" (clawhammer) traditional styles of east Kentucky. He also sang and played fiddle. His ''Whoa Mule'' album includes recordings from a 1952 home recording with fiddler Fernando Lusk to recordings made in 2001. Four solo songs also appear on

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was f ...

album ''Mountain Music of Kentucky.'' In 1999,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

Paul Patton presented Lee with the Governor's Award in the Arts.

Career

Lee Sexton worked as a field hand to earn the $1 he needed to buy his first banjo when he was eight years old. He received lessons from his father and uncles, one of whom was Morgan Sexton, the revered banjo player with a liquid and serene two-finger picking style. Growing up, Lee worked in the mines during the week and played his banjo on weekends, usually for house parties or corn shuckings. When Sexton was 23 years old, his right hand was crushed in a mining accident, forcing him to start playing the banjo with a new style of drop thumbing that he developed himself. By the 1940s, he had migrated his career to the radio. In 1988, he released his EP titled "Whoa Mule"; it was later turned into a CD in 2004.

Family

Lee Sexton was married to Opal Sexton. Together they had no children, but Lee had 2 sons from a previous marriage. The oldest, Johnny, is an ordained minister. The youngest, Phillip, continued to pursue a musical interest with his father until his untimely death in September 2000.

Documentary

An immersive, feature-length documentary film, ''Linefork,'' was made with Lee and his wife Opal in their home and community. The film was directed by Jeff Silva and Vic Rawlings and is a project of

Sensory Ethnography Lab The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard University is an interdisciplinary center for the making of anthropologically informed works of media that combine aesthetics and ethnography. Production courses associated with the SEL are offered throug ...

. The working title for the film was ''Lee and Opal''. Lee can also be seen playing banjo and discussing his coal-mining days in the BBC documentary "Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus".

References

External links

''Linefork'' documentary film website with trailer, bonus footage, and background information

* * * 1928 births 2021 deaths American banjoists Bluegrass musicians from Kentucky Country musicians from Kentucky People from Letcher County, Kentucky Place of birth missing Place of death missing {{US-country-musician-stub