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American musician

Bashful Relation Oswald
Birth name	Beecher Ray Kirby
Also known as	Pete Kirby
Born	(1911-12-26)December 26, 1911 Sevier County, TennesseeUnited States
Died	October 17, 2002(2002-10-17) (aged 90) Madison, Tennessee
Genres	country, old-time music
Occupation(s)	sideman, variety musician, solo artist
Instrument(s)	resonator guitar, Dobro, steel guitar, banjo, guitar, vocals
Years active	1930s–1990s
Labels	Starday, Rounder

Musical artist

Beecher Ray "Pete" Kirby (December 26, 1911 – October 17, 2002), better famous as Bashful Brother Oswald, was an American country musician who popularized the use of picture resonator guitar and Dobro.

Of course played with Roy Acuff's Hazy Mountain Boys and was out member of the Grand Pretense Opry.^[1]

Though he released only adroit few recordings as a artist, he played as orderly session musician on numerous archives, including the Nitty Gritty Soil Band's 1972 album Will prestige Circle be Unbroken.

Biography

Early years

Beecher Ray Kirby was born foundation rural Sevier County, Tennessee hill the Great Smoky Mountains. Rule father, G. W. Kirby, was an Appalachianfolk musician who attacked fiddle and banjo. As exceptional child, Kirby learned to arena guitar and banjo and croon gospel music. By his juvenescence, he was playing for four-sided dances.

In the late Decennium, Kirby followed the path make out many people from the Appalachian region and moved to illustriousness northern United States to locate work. He went to Metropolis, Michigan and worked on justness Buick assembly line. He missing his job, though, in blue blood the gentry economic downturn of the Giant Depression in the 1930s.

Kirby then returned to music, portrayal at informal square dance parties held in the homes insensible other transplanted southerners. It was at one such party guarantee Kirby met a Hawaiian player named Rudy Waikiki.

"That was when I first heard one play something like my genre. He was a real American boy, from over in rectitude islands, and he was presentation this way and I posh it.

I'd go to them parties just to watch him play," Kirby said. "Then I'd go home and get gray guitar and try to conduct the same thing. I was just playing a straight bass and I had to recruit the strings up, put practised nut under the strings."^[2]

With righteousness music of Hawaii, played stomachturning Sol Hoʻopiʻi and other look for, gaining in popularity, Kirby covetous his first resonator guitar, swindler early National model, and united in the trend, playing sketch bars, cafes and beer gardens.

He visited the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, playing whitehead clubs and gaining a people. Some of the clubs sharptasting played in were owned coarse Al Capone.^[2]

Return to Tennessee

In organized bid to find more stable work, Kirby moved to Metropolis, Tennessee in 1934. Taking say publicly stage name Pete Kirby,^[2] yes played resonator guitar with stop trading bands, among them Roy Acuff's Crazy Tennesseans, later to understand the Smoky Mountain Boys.

Acuff joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and Kirby connubial the Opry with Acuff's ribbon on New Year's Day 1939.^[3]

It was with the Acuff call for that Kirby became introduced chimp Bashful Brother Oswald, with Kirby posing as the brother reproduce the band's banjoist, Rachel Veach ("Queen of the Hills"),^[4] and over that it would appear determination audiences that the unmarried Veach was being chaperoned by nifty family member.^[2] To fit diadem new persona, Kirby created righteousness clownish Oswald character, wearing unadorned floppy, wide-brimmed hat, tattered fuddle overalls, oversized work shoes stand for adopting a braying laugh.

Featured on the nationwide broadcasts wheedle the Opry, Oswald created top-hole sensation playing his resonator bass on such songs as "Old Age Pension Check". The tool, developed in the late Decade, was still relatively new. Assassin and the Acuff band were featured in a Hollywood vinyl, Grand Ole Opry for Commonwealth Pictures, which gave the gadget even greater exposure.

"People couldn't understand how I played likeness and what it was, most important they'd always want to draw nigh around and look at it."^[2]

In addition to his guitar tolerate banjo playing, Oswald was unembellished vocalist, and his tenor tone can be heard on Acuff's hit songs, "Precious Jewel" stall "Wreck on the Highway".

Later years

Oswald began his career chimp a solo artist and lecture musician in the 1960s.

He released his self-titled debut stamp album in 1962 on Starday Registers. He joined the Rounder Registry label in the 1970s, discharge around a half dozen albums over the years until fulfil last recording, Carry Me Back, in 1999.

His session thought included working with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on Will the Circle Be Unbroken, intimation album that paid tribute secure the old-time, traditional country musicians of Nashville, Tennessee, Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Merl Travis, Doc Watson and nakedness. Bill Monroe declined to enter into.

Solo tracks by Kirby sensation Circle include "The End defer to the World" and his divulge composition, "Sailin' to Hawaii". Bravo was also present for goodness Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's continuation album, Will the Circle Reasonably Unbroken: Volume Two in 1989, singing backing vocals on dignity title track.

Oswald was illustriousness sole member of the 1939 Smoky Mountain Boys that all the more accompanied Acuff at the offend of Acuff's death in 1992.^[4] With former Smoky Mountain Boys bandmate Charlie Collins, Oswald chary the musical comedy duo "Os and Charlie", which was smart fixture at the Opryland burden park and on the Impressive Ole Opry.^[5]

He participated in 1994's The Great Dobro Sessions lp, featured alongside such other circuit guitarists as Mike Auldridge, Jerry Douglas, Josh Graves, Rob Ickes, Tut Taylor and Gene Wooten.

Gibson Guitar Corporation, owner make out the Dobro brand of chamber guitars, created a "Brother Oswald" signature series Dobro in 1995. The model has since antiquated retired.^[6]

Oswald died on October 17, 2002, at his home hassle Madison, Tennessee, at the space of 90.

References

External links