Interview by Josephine Reed for the NEA

NEA: How was a young man, coming up when you did, attracted not to Elvis but to Earl Scruggs?

Del McCoury: It's crazy, ain't it? It must have been 1950 when I heard Earl, and I would have been 11 years old. My brother had already taught me to play guitar. Then he bought this record of Flatt and Scruggs and when I heard Earl play, [it was] something that I just never heard before. I probably had at a younger age but you have to be a certain age, really, for things to click, I think, in your brain. And, Buddy, he clicked hard in my brain, you know? And it just about ruined me for life when I heard Earl Scruggs. Then, when I was in high school, all the kids were listening to Elvis Presley because he was the biggest thing going then. He had those hot records. But I was already into banjo and listening to Earl Scruggs and then, of course, I found other guys that were good, too, like Don Reno, who had a style completely different from Earl. A lot of young ones were coming up too at that time like J. D. Crowe and Sonny Osborne, who were in my age group, but they were just a little older than me, like, a year.

NEA: Your mother was from North Carolina?

McCoury: Uh huh. And my dad. They were both from western Carolina, Mitchell County. I was born and raised, though, in PA. There were three of us born down there, in Pennsylvania. My older brother, I owe him a lot. Well, I guess I do because he's the one that bought the Flatt and Scruggs record.

Now, we listened to the Grand Ole Opry when I was a kid, my dad and my brother always did. This is before television. They would listen every Saturday night and I can remember hearing things but I'd get sleepy and go to sleep, you know, lay down on the floor or something.

NEA: When did you first pick up a banjo?

McCoury: You know, I'm not sure about that. That's what I played, though. I heard Earl in 1950 and I think it was soon after that when I started playing. My dad, he knew a guy that had one and he borrowed it from this guy because this guy who had it didn't play one, he just had it. It was an old Vega, an old, cheap one. Anyway, we borrowed that and that's what I learned to play on. Then, when I got out of high school, I was working and I could buy things. I bought a brand new Gibson, it was an RB-150, they called them.

I played that and then I traded down in Baltimore. This great banjo player in Baltimore, Walter Hensley, he was the guy I was telling you about, the first one to play Carnegie Hall. This was before Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, or any of them. Those guys played Carnegie Hall and tore the place up, you know? They said they were awful nervous. But [Walter Hensley] had this old Gibson and I went in there one time to the club where he was playing and he wasn't playing this old Gibson. It was a great banjo so I asked him where it was at, I said, "I'd love to have that thing." He said, "You want that thing?" and I said, "Yeah." It was in a pawn shop downtown. I took my new banjo in there and traded it for that old one. I played it with Bill Monroe, my first date with him. Then, when I quit playing banjo, I started playing guitar and singing lead for him and I never did seriously go back to playing banjo.

NEA: How did you meet Bill Monroe?

McCoury: There was an ex-bluegrass boy, a guy that played guitar with Bill and sang lead for him about three years or four years. His name is Jack Cook. He just passed away recently. He had played with Bill and quit and moved to Washington, DC to play with the Blue Grass Champs, they called them back then The Stoneman Family. They had this television show there in DC on channel 5. Then they lost that TV show, I think is what happened. I'm not really sure but, when they did, he moved to Baltimore and started playing with Earl Taylor. Then, soon after he did that, he quit and he got his own band and I was one of his first banjo players.

Bill Monroe knew Jack was in Baltimore so, on his way to New York City, he stopped there to see if Jack would go with him to play this date because he didn't have a lead singer. So Jack said, "Well, do you have a banjo player?" and he said, "No," and so they took me along with them and that's how I met Bill Monroe and played banjo and he offered me a job. Then, when I decided to take the job, he said, "You know, I still need a guitar player and a lead singer worse than anything else." He wanted me to try that.

NEA: And you weren't singing then?

McCoury: Well, I was singing. I was just singing all the parts I could remember -- singing any part. I knew parts so well, as a kid, for some reason. With Jack, I think I was singing lead but I was a natural tenor back in those days. I was singing lead with Jack and so [Bill Monroe] probably heard me do that and he probably said to himself, well, if he can play guitar, I'll just use him, you know? That's kind of the way it came about.

NEA: Was it hard to make the switch from banjo to guitar?

McCoury: Well, actually, the first thing I learned to play was guitar when I was real young, like nine. I really never did seriously play guitar after that. But I thought, I know what it's supposed to sound like so I'm going to work at this. The thing that I wondered about was if I could play with Bill Monroe? Because I knew he had great rhythm and I didn't want to mess the band up. I found out it was easy playing with him because he must have had the same timing I did. I didn't have any trouble at all playing with Bill Monroe. He never told me a thing about my guitar playing, never did.

NEA: How important is timing when you're a musician? I mean, I'm sure there are musicians you admire, would love to play with, but it's difficult because the timing doesn't always work.

McCoury: Yeah, you know, in my opinion, it's the most important thing. I've played with some guys that had bad timing and I could not play with them. I absolutely cannot play with somebody that has bad timing. If they drag or speed or do both, I just can't play with them so that's it, you know? But not everybody has really good timing. I think it's something up here that some people have and some people don't.

NEA: Or can it also be timing, not even good or bad, but you're on a different wavelength? The timing is just different between two musicians perhaps and it doesn't work?

McCoury: That could be. I've heard guys say they play in the middle of the beat. I can't play with somebody that plays in the middle of the beat. I can if they play on top of the beat but, otherwise, I cannot. Now, it's kind of like a drive. Bluegrass has that. It's hard to play with drummers because most drummers will be behind the beat or in the middle of the beat. That's it, I think; some people have a different timing. I don't know if it's intentional or what it is but most of your good bluegrass bands play right on top of the beat without speeding. Now, if they start speeding, you'll notice it right away, too. No matter what speed it is, it can be really fast or it can be slow, but on top of the beat is where it's at, I think. It's either there or nothing.

NEA: You were with Bill Monroe and you were one of the Blue Grass Boys. Did he invent the term ?bluegrass'?

McCoury: I'll tell you what, he was from Kentucky. Somebody gave him that name. His band was called the Blue Grass Boys but I can remember when they didn't call his music bluegrass. I remember it when somehow somebody started calling it bluegrass music. He didn't. He didn't start that himself. By the '60s, they started having bluegrass festivals and that kind of established that name then. It was sometime in the late '50s before they ever called it bluegrass, really.

NEA: How long were you with Bill?

McCoury: I was only there a year. I played a year and quit and got married and moved to California.

NEA: You were a Golden State Boy then. Wasn't that the name of the band, the Golden State Boys?

McCoury: Uh huh. It was.

NEA: How was that?

McCoury: They had a TV show in Huntington Park, California. I thought, you know, this might be pretty good, to go out there and do this television show. They really didn't have all that much. Some of them were working day jobs, which I didn't realize to start with. So, when I went out there, I had to do that, too, get a day job to support my music. We didn't stay long. We only stayed about six months and then moved back to PA.

Soon after that, the bluegrass festivals started. 1965 was the first one. I didn't play that one but I did play in 1966, the very second one. So my band kind of started with that. There was a promoter named Carlton Haney who was the manager of Conway Twitty. He was a big country music promoter but he was deep into bluegrass from the time he was young. He used to manage Bill Monroe. He was talking to Bill Monroe when I was with him about starting a bluegrass festival. Bill would tell him, "No, that won't work," because if it wasn't Bill's idea, it wasn't no good idea.

This is '63 and, by '65, Carlton figured, well, I'm going to have a festival and I'll just book Bill on it, even if he's not behind it 100 percent. I'll just book him and his band. He booked just about every bluegrass band there was because he could. They didn't have that much work, you know? So, in '66, I played it. I was probably the first what I would call amateur bluegrass band to play his festival. I have him to thank for a lot of things because he booked me that early because I knew him, I guess. Anyway, it kind of got my band off the ground.

NEA: Was this the Dixie Pals?

McCoury: It was. That was '66 and I think I recorded my first album in '67.

NEA: What was that like?

McCoury: Well, you know, I had wanted to do that but didn't know how to go about it. I played in Berkeley, California, with Bill in '63. This guy that booked Bill there, his name is Chris Strachwitz and he has Arhoolie Records. He heard me sing with Bill and he told me, "I want to record you," and I thought, "Boy, this is great. I'll get my own record." And so he did. That helped me get started, too. I think mostly he booked or he recorded Cajun music and some Mexican music, Tex/Mex music, but he didn't have any bluegrass. I was the first bluegrass band that he put on his label. I was fortunate. That was my first record. The second one was Rounder. They were just starting their label and they wanted me to record for them. That was my second record. Then I recorded for a whole bunch of independent labels all through the years.

NEA: But, in the meantime, you also had a day job?

McCoury: I did. I worked a day job until maybe the middle '80s.

NEA: What were you doing?

McCoury: Mostly cutting timber, working in the woods cutting trees. I did a lot of other things. I worked construction. They were building a nuclear plant. They were building the second reactor and I worked on that for a winter out on that river. Buddy, it was cold, I'm telling you.

NEA: So that's hard, physical labor.

McCoury: Yeah.

NEA: Plus you're raising a family.

McCoury: Yeah.

NEA: Then you were playing bluegrass?

McCoury: It's true. I grew up on a farm so I was always used to physical work, hard physical work. I think I liked it. I know I did. Cutting timber was the same thing. There's a lot of physical work to that and I was in really good shape then. I could hold notes forever. Just hold them out there, which I can't do now. But I did that and, of course, my wife, Jean, worked too.

NEA: So what happened in the mid-'80s that allowed you to just do music? To devote yourself to that?

McCoury: I'll tell you, the kids, they were grown and I think they were all through school by then and so we had kind of become independent, me and her. We decided, you know what? Let's go to Nashville. Because my booking agent was there then and there was a lot of TV in Nashville then. Not now, but there was then. So we thought, well, we'll go down there and we were in good enough financial shape where we could go down and buy a house. We thought, well, if things don't work out, we'll sell the house and go back to PA. We've got that one still there, you know? So we never did leave though because things just started getting better. The IBMA started in the middle '80s and we were doing good there.

NEA: That's the International Bluegrass Music Association.

McCoury: That's right. So we were winning awards then, you know?

NEA: So that move to Nashville really regenerated your career.

McCoury: It did. Yeah, it sure did. Soon as we moved, we got a different booking agent. I knew Ricky Skaggs from when he was about 15. He was really doing well at that time, when I moved down there. He's actually one of the people that kind of persuaded me to move. Ricky wanted me to record for his label. He started his own music label and I was the first one he talked to about recording for it. So I said, yeah, I'd love to. I don't know what label I was on then, Rounder, I think. So, when I went with him, he had a manager, Stan Strickland, who's my manager now, and so we were talking. We had a meeting and I said, "Now, can we keep my old booking agent?" "No, can't do that." That was the first words out of their mouth, both of them, "No, you can't do that. You have to go with this one." So we did that. We changed agents then and I recorded for Ricky's label. I think I recorded two or three records on that label.

We did this Down From the Mountain tour. They called and wanted us to do something in the movie [O Brother, Where Art Thou]. But I had recorded a record with Steve Earl and we did 30 days here with that tour. Then we went to Europe and did 30 days. I didn't have time to go do it but then, after the movie came out, they wanted us to do the Down From the Mountain tour, which was for the movie and for the record. So we did that and, while we were on that tour, we got a lot of offers from different record labels. That song that Ralph Stanley sang and Dan Tyminski sang, "Man of Constant Sorrow"? That really boosted bluegrass at the time. My manager told me that we met with ten different labels in Nashville because of this. They wanted to record us. In the windup, my manager, he'd done everything down there in that town. Of course, he worked on the west coast booking and, anyway, he knew all these label heads down there and he said, "You know what? If we go with any of these guys, they're going to say, 'Okay, Stan, now, you know how to promote this stuff,' so I'm going to have to do all the work." Stan was going to have to do all the work anyway. He said, "Have you ever thought about starting your own label because this would be the time because I'm going to have to do all the work anyway." So we talked it over and we thought, well, we'll do that. So that's what we did. I've had my own label since then.

NEA: Your two sons joined the band. When did that happen?

McCoury: Well, that's a funny story. Back when Ronnie was just a kid, he was probably 12 or 13, I played in New York City. I went up there and played and Ronnie was on vacation from school, it was that time of the year, you know, like between Christmas and New Year's so he went with me up there. I got up there and Bill Monroe took a liking to him. He'd take his hat off, put it on Ronnie. He put his mandolin in his hands. He said, "Now, there, you play me something." So Ronnie didn't know a thing about a mandolin. But he had played violin in school but he quit on account of he'd rather play baseball. His music teacher talked to us and she said, "Boy, you know, I really hate Ronnie quitting because he was doing so good in music." But he was also a good ball player. So I took him along with me up there [to New York] and that did it.

We got back home and I had an old mandolin at home. I had a bus at the time and there was a luggage rack up over top. We'd just throw that old mandolin up there and everybody in the band would get it out and play it while we were going down the road. So, it just so happened that it needed a lot of work so I gave it to the guy that was playing banjo with me, Dick Smith, to work on. He was in DC, that's where he lived. I said, "Now, Dick, there's no hurry for this thing, I know it needs a lot of work so you go ahead and fix it." Well, Ronnie, he said, "Dad, when's he going to get done with that mandolin?" I said, "Well, I told him he could take his time." And so he got on Dick and Dick fixed it so that he could play it.

He played a summer with me, just played rhythm. He never took no breaks or anything. He knew the chords and he could play. His rhythm was good and so I'd just take him along and let him play at the festivals that summer. He played rhythm well. That fall, I had this tour coming up in Europe. It was, like, 30 days; we played just about every day. He was asking me and his mom about going on that tour. And I said, "No, you got to stay here and go to school." So he came home from school one day and he said, "Dad, the principal wants to talk to you" and I thought, oh, what's he done. He told me what it was about. He said, "No, I told him you're going to Europe and I want to go with you and he wants to talk to you about that." I thought, well, this won't do no good but I'll go talk to him. So I did. I talked to the principal and he said, "Now, where all are you going?" and I told him, you know, I think we were playing, like, England and Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark. After awhile, the principal said, "You know, I'm going to let Ronnie go. He'll learn more on that trip than he would here in school and I won't have him make up his work, either." I thought, "Oh, no, I have to take this kid with me now!" But we took him along. He learned so fast. Kids learn so fast, especially if they get in a band where there are professionals. He never let up since then.

NEA: And your other son, Robbie decided to join the family business, too.

McCoury: He sure did. When he was about eight, I think it was, he was trying to play the banjo. I had it lying around. I didn't play it. He'd be trying to play something and I would just kind of guide him a little bit. I never did make him play anything or rehearse or practice or nothing. They just kind of did it on their own. So if I'd hear him doing something and I know, "Now, there's one note you're missing right there," I'd show him that note. I might have even picked the instrument up. I might just put my finger on the fret or the string. So it wasn't long until he was playing that banjo pretty good and playing with records. They listened to other music, too. They listened to Leonard Skynard and all southern rock bands in those days. They listened to all that stuff.

Rob got good on banjo. My banjo player quit. While he was still in the band, Rob came with me to play bass. It didn't take him long. He was a good bass player. The banjo player then in the band quit, went back to Boston. I said, "Now, you're gonna have to play the banjo," you know? He kind of dreaded that because there's a little more responsibility with that. He had to know all the melodies to the songs that I was doing. Where, with the bass, you just play rhythm and chords and it's simpler, you know, I'm sure it is. But he did. He came right in, started playing. His first record with me was in 1991, I think. I was on Rounder then and the record was called, Don't Stop the Music. He really played some great breaks on that record. He really did. He was playing my old banjo that I got in the pawn shop down there.

NEA: I want to talk about Bonnaroo. You have, on one hand, a band that's been together for so long. It's a very stable band. You personify bluegrass, but you're always reaching out to other musicians, other genres. You've become a rock star.

McCoury: At my old age, I've become a rock star! I'll tell you what now. We owe that to Ronnie. Ronnie said, "Now, you know, they've started this Bonnaroo," the first year, I think it was. Ronnie told our manager, he said, "Stan, we should be on that show."

NEA: What did your manager say when he said that?

McCoury: I think he was kind of what would you say...

NEA: Stunned?

McCoury: Yeah, stunned, you're right. The thing about it was, while they were having this festival, we were on the west coast. It was going to be hard for us to get back and everything. So the booking agent and the manager got together and they thought, well, you know what? I think they can do it. They can do it on Sunday, the last day. So we flew in. I thought, "Boy, this bus driver is going to have a time getting in there" because they talked about all this traffic on I-24. Well, we got in the bus and I think we went as early as we could on account of we figured we'd get in a traffic jam. We got down there, and there was nobody on the highway down there. We pulled into the Holiday Inn and what it was, everybody came on Thursday. They didn't come on Sunday. So the jam was all over with, you know? So we didn't have a bit of trouble getting in. And, you know, it surprised us. There was a lot of bluegrass fans there, there really was.

NEA: So Ronnie was right?

McCoury: Yeah, he was. He's got great instincts. He does. Better than me, I think, on a lot of things like that.

NEA: Well, you've performed at a concert with Phish, not exactly what you would think of as a likely pairing but one that worked.

McCoury: Yeah, it did, you know? Well, what happened, they did a song of mine on a live record and, after they did that, they called and wondered if we'd come play their festival up there on Lake Oswego. So we said, "Yeah, we'd love to" so we went up there and played and, man, I couldn't believe the people. There were 77,000 people, they said, at that one. I got there and Trey, kind of the leader of the band, he said, "What do you think we could sing together?" and I said, "Man, I have no idea." He knew we could sing the one that he recorded, my song, we could do that. He said, "Do you know "Blue and Lonesome"?" and, boy, that shocked me and I said, "You mean you know that song?" And that was really hardcore bluegrass. That was back with Bill Monroe and Hank Williams. Old Hank wrote that song and the first to record it was Bill. He'd done his homework. He knew that song and he knew some more hardcore bluegrass songs so we went out there and we could have done a whole show, just the two of us. Doing those kind of things. It surprised me.

NEA: Was it fun?

McCoury: It was fun, yeah, it was. Oh, and I got to tell you then, last winter, Trey, he came down by himself and played the Ryman Auditorium. He wanted me and the boys to come and so I thought, "Well, we'll just go down there. I'd like to see him." So we went down and he sent for us to come on the bus. So we went on the bus and he said, "Now, I want you guys to play with me tonight." We said, " We have nothing to play. We didn't bring nothing. We just wanted to listen to you." So Ronnie said, "I've got an idea. I'll go down here to the music store -- George Gruhn, he's got a music store there and he's got vintage instruments, he's got anything you can think of." He's got, like, three or four floors of instruments. So Ron came back and, in the meantime, well, Trey had a guitar for me to play. So Ronnie said, "Okay, I'll go see if George has got a mandolin I can play" and so he went down there. While he was in the store, my other son, Rob, came and his wife. He kind of came late and Trey said, "Hey, Rob, play with us." And Rob said, "I don't have nothing to play." And so Rob said, "I know what, I'll call Ronnie." So he called Ronnie in the store and here Ronnie came back with a vintage banjo and mandolin, good instruments. Trey said, "Where else could you play in this country where you just walk around the corner and get these great instruments to do a show with?" He said, "There's no other place I know of that you can do that except Nashville."

NEA: What do you think accounts for the exploding popularity of bluegrass, personified by you, in fact?

McCoury: Well, you know, I'm not sure. It's always had its plateaus or it'd go up, you know, in popularity and then just stay there for awhile. I know the formation of our International Bluegrass Music Association helped. It gave it a big boost then because we got organized for a change. They tried to do that earlier. They tried to do that in the '60s but I was pretty young then and I didn't get in on the arguments. So they didn't form nothing. Back when Bill Monroe was still going strong, you know, and Flatt and Scruggs and Stanley Brothers and all, you know, but it just didn't work out. Then, in '85, we did form the Association and it really helped the music because now we have a place where everybody can get together, like promoters and record companies and musicians and managers and everything. Before, it seemed like it was just quibbling and all but now they work together.

NEA: You also do outreach by recording other people. I'm thinking about Richard Thompson's songs.

McCoury: Yeah, you never know where you're going to find a good song, you know? There's a story about that song. A friend of mine was in New York City...

NEA: We're talking about 1952 Vincent Black Lightning.

McCoury: That's right. Well, he heard this song on the radio and I'd never heard it before. He sent word, he said, "You ought to record that song." It just so happened we were doing a record. He sent a tape of it. So, I said, "I like that story." It's a great story. So we worked it out in the key that would suit me and kind of arranged it. I think, at that time, Jerry Douglas was my record producer. He kind of arranged it for us but I liked that song and, you know, it's funny, I never know what I'm going to like until I hear it. People ask me what I'm looking for, when I record, and I don't know until I hear it, you know?

1952 Vincent Black Lightning performed live The Del McCoury Band. Recording coutesy of Daytrotter Sessions.

NEA: It reminds me of Duke Ellington, who hated to be put in the jazz box. He would say, "There are two kinds of music, there's good music and the other kind."

McCoury: Hey, that reminds me, too, we're recording with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band now. We did an album out in San Francisco last week with those guys. There's a long story to that, too, the way it came about. My distributor is Sony Red in New York City. They called and wondered if I'd go down there and sing a song with the Preservation Hall Band for the Katrina victims, you know, back when this all happened. I said, "I'd be glad to." So I didn't know what songs I'd do with them but we went down there and figured out a couple. I think I recorded two or three songs but they just put one on the record. I got to know those guys. They're great musicians. So then we went down and recorded a few songs with my band and theirs. Then we decided, well, we might as well do it. So we played a date in California in San Rafael. Then we went down in south San Francisco there and recorded in what was a mission. They put a stage in there and we just recorded -- set up mikes for whoever really needed them. We recorded 14 songs in about three days.

I'm excited about that because actually all music's related, you know? I used to think that there was nothing like bluegrass, which there isn't. I really like it. But, when you go back and think about it, Bill Monroe, he got songs from Jimmy Rogers, which he wasn't a bluegrass singer but he was a yodeler. Also, he would cover country artists in songs, like up in the '50s and '60s, Bill would. A country artist would record a song and he'd cover it, doing it bluegrass style. So gradually I got to thinking, you know, this music is all related and it can all be done together, it really can. You can come up with something that sounds a little different, you know? So that's why we did the album.

NEA: Well, blues and themes from the blues seem to really permeate your music.

McCoury: It does. It does in the beginning. Bill Monroe, his music was influenced by blues, which I didn't know then, not at the time, but it was really. So I think all bluegrass is influenced by the blues. I think, you know, there's some fiddle players that can really do that. I needed a fiddle player. Well, when I moved to Nashville, my fiddle player didn't want to go down there so I knew I was going to have to get one when I got in Nashville. A lot of professional fiddle players in that town auditioned for me to take a job. So this young guy from Kentucky, Jason Carter, had done a date or two with us, or I think maybe just an audition date. I finally decided on Jason. He wasn't that good yet but I could hear the blues in his playing where I couldn't hear that in some of these professionals. I liked that. I knew that if he had a little guidance, he would really come around, playing the melodies and putting blues in those melodies. For some reason, he had it just normal to him. It was just normal for him to do that.

NEA: Tell me, what do you like best about performing?

McCoury: Well, you know, I never do have a program so I just do requests when I go out, after I get the band introduced. I like to do some new songs but, after we get everybody introduced, you know, I'll ask for requests. I like to do that because the people, it gives them a chance to be part of the show, I think, if you do their requests. As long as they request something you've recorded, you're okay. If they request somebody else's songs, you're in trouble! I'll just do all request shows most of the time. I try to put a new song in somewhere, I'll slip it in on them.

NEA: The band earned membership in the legendary Grand Ole Opry. That must have been a thrill.

McCoury: It was because I'd listened to it since I was just a kid. It was such a big show in my mind. Well, it is a long-running radio show. It really is. It's the longest running, I think. We had the International Bluegrass Music show in Louisville at that time. I was accepting an award for something and these two guys walked up beside me. I was supposed to be talking. They just walked right up there and stood there and it was Sonny Osborne of the Osborne Brothers and Ricky Scaggs. I thought, "I wonder what these guys are here for?" So they stood there and I kept talking, I think, because I hate dead air time. So they just stood there and I thought, "I wonder what they're doing?" I figured they had a joke they was going to pull on me because Sonny especially is up for that stuff. Anyway, there was a little lull there and Sonny said, "What was you doing 40 years ago tonight?" I said, "Man, I don't know." I had no idea. He said, "I'll tell you. You were playing on the Grand Ole Opry with Bill Monroe 40 years ago tonight." He said, "Me and Ricky was wondering, would you like to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry?" It kind of floored me, you know? I'm surprised I even finished what I was saying after that but I think I did. So that was the first I knew it. Pete Fisher put him up to it, the manager of the Opry.

NEA: Tell me, what went through your mind when you found out you were a National Heritage Fellow? Can you take us through what happened when you got the call from Barry Bergey?

McCoury: Wow, that was another highlight of my life, I'll tell you. I thought, you know, I don't know if I deserve that. That's really something. I thought I could probably be an Opry member someday. I probably wasn't near as surprised to become a member of the Opry because it was something I kind of thought I could achieve but being an NEA member, I just never thought I would become a recipient. I was really excited and, of course, Jean was, too, I'm sure. She didn't show it much but she was.