Lonesome Larry

Larry Sparks

I saw Larry Sparks perform with his Lonesome Ramblers a few times during the 1990s, and they're still going strong. By the looks of it, the guitar he's holding could easily have been with him all the while -- even when the Lonesome Ramblers recorded one of their first albums, Rambling Bluegrass, in Nashville.

"Nashville," he says, is "an exciting place. When [I] think of Nashville, I think of the Grand Ole Opry and the people that's been there for years."

Larry is one of those peeps who's been there a tol'ably long time, and, before that, he was there -- like so many others -- in spirit, as a young boy sprawled in front of the "big stand-up floor radio."

"We used to listen to WSM every weekend," he recalls.

Earlier this year, he was inducted into the George D. Hay Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.