August

Who is this banjo-pickin' legend?

This silver-haired banjo picker, pictured here at the Station Inn, is a veteran -- and I do mean veteran -- of the Nashville scene. His first gig in Music City was as one of Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys -- 57 years ago. (You do the math.)

"We came up and recorded some sessions over at Bradley's place," he says of those early days. "That was real exciting because I had never been in a recording studio like that. Being where it was in Nashville ... that was big time."

In the 1970s, he formed his own back-up band, the New South, whose list of members through the years reads like a Who's Who of bluegrass all-stars: Larry Rice, Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, Keith Whitley, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Don Rigsby, to name but a few. The self-titled first album, released in 1975 and featuring the classic song "The Old Home Place," was one of the most widely influential bluegrass albums of the 20th century.

Significant August dates in bluegrass history

• 2nd: Lorraine Jordan, featured elsewhere in this calendar, was born (1961)
• 3rd: Paul Mullins, of the Traditional Grass (and a former Blue Grass Boy), died (2008)
• 8th: Osborne Brothers joined the Grand Ole Opry (1964)
• 10th: Jimmy Martin was born (1927)
• 13th: The same recorded "Sunny Side of the Mountain" (1964)
• 15th: County Sales began full-time operation (1965)
• 16th: Fiddler extraordinaire Vassar Clements died (2005)
• 18th: Charlie Waller died (2004)
• 20th: Ralph Stanley II was born (1978)
• 27th: Ralph II's uncle, Carter, was born (1925)