Bull Mountain Boys profile picture

Bull Mountain Boys

About Me

Formed at the foot of Bull Mountain, Patrick County, Virginia in 1955 the band was formed around the fiddle, guitar and vocals of Bill Williams and R. Baxter Thomas. During the founding years of the band their approach to vocals was the same as many other bands delivering the popular "Brothers Style Duets". There are so many who kicked up dust on the same road it is sad that I cannot mention all of them. (GO TO OUR BLOG-NAME YOUR FAVORITES) The Bull Mountain Boys influnces were many but Charlie Poole's recordings provided the band with a wealth of material. During the folk boom of the sixties and early seventies the Bull Mountain Boys enjoyed much popularity at hundreds of Fiddlers Conventions. Camp Spings, North Carolina, Labor Day week-end 1971 found the Bull Mountain Boys on stage for Albert Ihde's production "Bluegrass Country Soul". (Which has been reissued on DVD by Time-Life.) McKinley he hollered, McKinley he squalled is just one in a line of Charlie Poole numbers that are peformed today. Music and our thanks for visting with us, please share our page with a friend. RESPECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 10/27/2007
Band Website: myspace.com/bullmountainboys
Band Members: This page and music are a glimpse of the hard work with the good times recorded for your pleasure. Please listen to a tune or two that you might grasp the sound and diferences of the generations at play in the music thru the present day. Bill Williams served in the Army during the Korean conflict returning to his Patrick County homeplace, the farm on which he was raised. No stranger to hard work he got the idea that he would like to play the fiddle. These days Bill plays guitar and sings at church. He is now 80 plus years young and dun quit counting, however he does manage to cut a couple of loads of logs a week. (I forgot to mention he took up logging as a hobbie when he retired.) Always upbeat with a smile that was contagious, his fiddle in hand, he is now the only living founding member of the band. Robert "Baxter" Thomas was quite the Charlie Poole fan, having aided in location of the best quality 78 rpms for the Charlie Poole reissues by a former New York based recording label. In the movie Bluegrass Country Soul he delivers the message, "McKinley he hollered" . Singer, songwriter, slash guitarist, he spent his working years as a second generation textile worker. Baxter, my daddy passed away October 29th, 1997 . Dewey "Delbert" Martin served the Army in the European Theatre during WWII like so many returning home to face the big question mark of life. Delbert played guitar in his spare time working out his days in a textile mill. Delbert is the big guy on the left in the Bluegrass Country Soul movie available at Wally World. Harry McGee is the bands banjo player for this appearance. A Franklin County resident he played the Charlie Poole style of banjo. I now own the banjo he played in the movie a RB-250 Gibson made in 1966. It had set in a Martinsville music store for more than 2 years before he bought it the Christmas of 1969. Zoom in on the banjo in the movie for a close up of the peg head. Teddy Thomas, son of Baxter Thomas is the young fellow playing the doghouse bass in Bluegrass Country Soul. The bass I played in the movie had been shot by an unadoring fan of the previous owner. The shooters wife slept with the bass player the night before. Confessing to her husband the husband followed the band to the next town. The band is introduced... now here is Blank and the Bluegrass Boys... as the story goes the husband stood up and fired a 32 cal pistol at the stage. The bass player was not hit but dropped the bass after the bullet struck next to the finger board breaking the neck off. It had fallen and could not get up until a Henry County instrument repair man "picked it up" in a trade. He showed us the slug which he said was in the bottom when he took it apart. He sold us the bass but the slug didn't come with it. Hope that during reading you have enjoyed listening to some of our music.
Influences: Bluegrass, Country, Rock, Blues, Americana, Acoustic, Rap, Hip-Hop, Charlie Poole, Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, Reno and Smiley
Sounds Like: Bluegrass, Americana, Folk, Country, Charlie Poole and The North Carolina Ramblers, Acoustic
Record Label: ..
Type of Label: Major

My Blog

Conversation with the Devil

I dreamed last night I was cast into hell by a jealous God. The devil walked up and said, "You don’t need no lightening rod. It hardly ever rains down here...I can’t recall the last storm....
Posted by on Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:20:00 GMT