By ERIN EDGEMON, Business Editor

Bobby Osborne

Bluegrass legend Bobby Osborne never thought he would be in the same company as the musicians he grew up listening to on the Grand Ole Opry.

“I had dreams you know,” he said in a phone interview with The Murfreesboro Post from his Portland home. “Everyone who has been successful has dreams. I never thought that any of them would come true.”

Now many consider Osborne, who grew up listening to the likes of bluegrass and country legends Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe, one of the musicians that helped craft the genre of bluegrass music.

“I never had any idea that I would be any kind of figure that people would recognize later,” the humble mandolin player and singer said. “I never had much sense to look that far ahead. I was just doing something that I loved.”

But when bluegrass music took off in the early 1950s, Osborne, 76, said he knew he had made the right decision to keep pursing his music career.

Osborne is being honored at the 31st annual Uncle Dave Macon Days slated for July 11-13. He is the 2008 recipient of the Heritage Award, which is presented to an individual who has spent a lifetime in the perpetuation and preservation of traditional roots music.

“Bobby Osborne has had a profound and widely felt impact on bluegrass as a vocalist, mandolinist and bandleader for over five decades,” said Teresa Owen, Uncle Dave Macon Days director. “His is truly one of the greatest, most distinctive voices in the history of the music. He is a proud member of bluegrass’s first generation – a group that includes Ralph Stanley and Jesse McReynolds – and today he is making music as strong as any in his storied legacy.”

The Heritage Award will be presented at 5 p.m. on July 12 with a performance to follow.

“I feel good about it — anybody should,” he said of the honor, adding that the Heritage Award is the first award recognizing his career that he will receive.

Osborne, who regularly teaches mandolin at The Kentucky School of Bluegrass & Traditional Music, said he has heard many musicians talk about the Uncle Dave Macon Days festival, but he has never had an opportunity to attend until this year.

“It is very impressive to me to be able to play down there,” he said of the festival named in honor of one of his heroes.

Osborne said as a teenager growing up in rural Hyden, Ky. he got the chance to see Macon perform once in Dayton, Ohio.

He was impressed by Macon’s showmanship, watching him throw his banjo up in the air and sit in a chair and bang his foot on the floor. Osborne had often listened to Macon perform on radio broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry.

“Him being as old as he was and got to be a member of the Opry, I thought that was really neat,” Osborne said.

Macon was 54 when he starting playing on the Grand Ole Opry.

Osborne, who is best known for his rendition of “Rocky Top,” began performing in his teens, imitating the country music stars he grew up hearing on the Opry.

“The Opry was just a must,” he said. “I stayed on the radio (Saturday nights) from the time it went on to the time it went off.”

He got to see many legends such as Scruggs, Monroe, Minnie Pearl and Ernest Tubb perform live as a teenager

“I grew a little bit taller every time I saw them,” Osborne said.

But unlike most fans, he went on to perform with them and many other country and bluegrass greats years later.

Osborne and his brother Sonny, whom he performed with as The Osborne Brothers for decades, became members of the Grand Ole Opry in 1964.

A chance meeting with songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, a few years later, became a collaboration that changed Osborne’s career forever.

The Osborne Brothers recorded a fast-paced version of the Bryant’s newly written song “Rocky Top.” They were the first performers to record the iconic song that became the University of Tennessee’s unofficial fight song and one of the state of Tennessee’s official songs.

“From then on until now, it became history,” Osborne said.

The song that was originally recorded as a B-side is the most played country or bluegrass song in history.

“Now, it is a must that we do “Rocky Top”,” Osborne said. “I think the song in general is just as popular as it has ever been.”

Osborne recalled performing the song in the early 1980s during a UT football game against the University of Alabama at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville.

His band performed the song on the 50-yard line with the university’s marching band.

“What an awesome thing that was,” Osborne said. “When we started playing ‘Rocky Top’ we could barely hear what we were playing (for the cheering crowd). It was one of the greatest events that happened over there. It was quite a thrill.”

Now as Osborne is working on completing a new album, the performer said he has no intentions of putting his mandolin on a shelf anytime soon.

“I just can’t see me doing it,” he said of retiring.

Erin Edgemon can be reached at 869-0812 and at eedgemon@murfreesboropost.com.

On the Web:
www.bobbyosborne.com