"The friendship and inspiration he provided us will never be forgotten. From leading the Kentucky Mtn Boys and the New South, working with Jimmy Martin as a teenager, playing with the legendary Bluegrass Album Band and more, his picking has been a part of the soundtrack of all of our lives. One of the finest to ever pick up a five-string banjo and one of the coolest cats of all time, his banjo is on some of our favorite bluegrass records. The bluegrass band the Grascals wrote:, “We lost a true American treasure today. "He was a wonderful mentor, and what a great bandleader in the music… and no better bluegrass banjo player in the history other than Earl Scruggs.” “He would take me out and buy me White Castle burgers after our shows with the New South until I couldn’t eat anymore," O'Connor wrote. Mark O’Connor, the legendary roots fiddler-guitarist, wrote on social media that Crowe was “one of the absolute greats in bluegrass, and a really wonderful mentor to me when I was a young boy coming up.” O’Connor was in Crowe’s band for just a few weeks in the mid-’70s when he was 14. Crowe Bluegrass Festival, is named in his honor. He received the Bluegrass Star Award in 2011, an honorary doctorate from the University of Kentucky in 2012 and a lifetime achievement award from the Lexington Music Awards in 2016. Other well-known musicians who did time as part of the New South over the years included the country music legend Keith Whitley, Gene Johnson, Don Rigsby, Richard Bennett, Ron Stewart, Phil Leadbetter and Rickey Wasson.Ĭrowe’s accolades included a Grammy for “Fireball” in the country instrumental of the year category in 1983. The band at the time included a future who’s who of bluegrass: Rice on guitar, Ricky Skaggs on mandolin, Bobby Sloane on bass and Jerry Douglas on guitar. Crowe & the New South, as they became one of the key bands in the history of bluegrass, especially after it recorded the 1975 album officially called “The New South” and unofficially known among the cognoscenti as “0044,” after its Rounder Records catalog title. In 1971, the group’s name changed to J.D. In 1961, Crowe formed the Kentucky Mountain Boys, which included Doyle Lawson and Larry Rice. A week ago, the website Bluegrass Today reported that his son, David, said he was in a rehab center after a brief hospitalization but was expected to be home for Christmas.Ĭrowe embarked on a farewell tour in 2012 but had continued to perform at shows and festivals until COPD was reported to have forced him to give up performing for good in 2019.Ĭrowe started out with Jimmy Martin, joining his band, the Sunny Mountain Boys, in 1956 when he was 19. He was reported to have been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. Another banjo legend also died recently, his friend and compatriot Sonny Osborne, of the Osborne Brothers, who died in October.Ĭrowe's cause of death was not immediately reported. Farewell and thank you, JD Crowe.”Ĭrowe’s Christmas Eve death made it a blue Christmas for aficionados of bluegrass who remember that another legend of the genre, the guitarist Tony Rice, a former member of Crowe’s New South, died on Christmas Day a year ago.
He was just the best bluegrass banjo player out there, man.”īéla Fleck tweeted: “We lost one of the greatest banjo players ever to pick up the five early this morning.
The space in between the notes he played and the way he rolled them out just kept the band driving, running on all cylinders like a V8 engine. He had tone, taste and TIMING like no other. “He will be remembered as one of the greatest to ever play bluegrass music. What can I say? He was an absolute legend,” Strings wrote. “Woke up this morning to hear the sad news about J.D. Testimonials began to come in from the legions of musicians who considered Crowe an influence or hero, including Billy Strings, one of the current popularizers of bluegrass music. Prayers needed for all during this difficult time,” family members said in a post on his fan club page. “This morning at around 3 a.m, our dad, JD Crowe, went home. Crowe, a banjo player who helped define the instrument for generations of bluegrass fans, died Friday, his family announced on Facebook.
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