Glenn Neaves

Glen Neaves began playing fiddle in 1919, at the age of nine--his father played clawhammer-style banjo, but Glen never took to that instrument or technique. His musical role model was G. B. Grayson, a famed traditional fiddle player who lived nearby, who was well known enough to have gotten a mention in "The Ballad of Tom Dooley." Neaves played in a more contemporary style of bluegrass than most of his rivals, and avoided playing many of the more familiar breakdowns common to bands in his own time. He was, in the middle 1960's, completely oblivious as well to the more commercial approach of folk-rock music. Neaves also accompanied himself as a singer on guitar, and was recognized as one of the better bluegrass singers of his region, as well as a unique fiddle stylist. Neaves organized the Virginia Mountain Boys in the 1940's, and its membership varied through the years. Their major release, Country Bluegrass from Southwest Virginia on Folkways from the mid-1960's, featured Ivor Melton (mandolin), Bobby Harrison (guitar), and Cullen Galyean (banjo). ~ Bruce Eder