Curly Seckler

By JERI ROWE, Go Triad Editor

Web site: www.curlyseckler.net will be up soon.

Behind the music: You could call Seckler one of the bluegrass' founding fathers. This 85-year-old man escaped his family's cotton farm to make a better living playing music — and that was 70 years ago.

He has worked with some of the biggest names in bluegrass and country music. He sang with Bill Monroe as well as Monroe's brother, Charlie. But Seckler's most famous job was his long-running stint as the singer with Flatt & Scruggs, the duo that gave us the theme from the "Beverly Hillbillies," the very tune that inspired Bela Fleck to pick up the banjo. He worked with Flatt & Scruggs from the 1940s through the 1960s and later joined Lester Flatt when Flatt formed Nashville Grass.

Seckler is the newest member of the Hall of Honor of the International Bluegrass Music Association. He's also still recording.  Copper Creek Records of Roanoke, Va., released, "Down In Caroline"  Sept. 20, 2005.   "Down In Caroline" is a 15-track CD in which Seckler plays with a stellar lineup of musicians including Larry Sparks, Dudley Connell and Rob Ickes.

His musical signature: His voice.  Seckler sings that high lonesome sound so recognizable with bluegrass. On "Down In Caroline," there's a hidden track that shows Seckler's stratospheric range with Bill Monroe back in 1971 on "Sittin' On Top of the World." About his voice that day, Seckler says, "I went over them treetops like a jet."

How Seckler learned how to sing: "How I can sing like a jet across the pines? Well, anyone who sings with (Bill) Monroe would know. He tries to put the numbers up there where you can't reach them. But I've had a lot of practice. I started when I was 15, and now I'm 85, and I ain't stopped yet."

What bluegrass means to Seckler: "It means a meal ticket. When I started, I come straight out of the cotton patch. I quit picking cotton because I thought I could make a better living than wearing out the toes of my shoes in a cotton patch. I told Mom I wanted to get into the music business, and she told me, 'You're going to starve to death,' and the first five years, she was right. I finally got to make a little money. And later, you know, I made me a down-to-earth good living."

Thoughts on "Down In Caroline": "I want to say albums, but they're CDs now. But it's like when people come up to the record tables, and they'll say, 'Curly, I want the best album you've got,' and I'll tell them, 'Good Lord, you've got to buy all of them. I don't make bad ones.'"

Thoughts on making the IBMA's Hall of Honor: "I just thank the good Lord they did it when I was still breathing. You know, there are some of them up there — Lester (Flatt) and Earl (Scruggs), Don Reno, just a whole bunch of them — and I actually feel I helped put them in there. And it's an honor that I'm hanging (on a plaque) with them up there."

Visit www.gotriad.com/go/audio to hear Seckler sing "Dig A Hole In The Meadow" from his upcoming release, "Down In Caroline."