Charlie Derrington dies in road accident

Charlie Derrington (51), production manager of the Gibson instrument company's mandolin division, was riding his motorcycle on Briley Parkway north of Nashville, TN, at 8.45 p.m. on Tuesday 1 August, when he was hit by a car traveling in the wrong direction. He was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The car driver, in his early thirties, fled the scene but was arrested later on suspicion of drunken driving.

The bluegrass world is indebted to Charlie Derrington for at least two great achievements: he personally restored the Gibson Master Model F-5 mandolin #73987, Bill Monroe's main instrument, after it was smashed to pieces in 1985 (see this story); and he restored the position of Gibson as a supreme maker of mandolins, with the revived Master Model line. F-5 #73987 is now on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. An example of Charlie Derrington's knowledge of instruments, and his readiness to share it, can be found here. He is also on record as having said at Earl Scruggs's eightieth birthday: 'Every banjo that we [Gibson] sold after 1946 can be traced to one man.'