Bluegrass and country legends in photos

The online magazine The Bitter Southerner publishes today 'The threads wind westward', an essay by Chuck Reece on the progress of mountain and country music westward across North America, as chronicled in the hundreds of photos taken over four decades by Lawson Little (68), born in Chicago of Southern parents. As a professional photographer engaged to take promo photos of musicians, Lawson Little became accepted in their company and took his own informal photos documenting the development of the music.

The selection published today includes seventeen of notable bluegrass figures: Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Ralph Stanley, Jim & Jesse, Vassar Clements, Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott, and Del McCoury. Some of the captions were clearly written before the deaths of Ralph Stanley and Guy Clark. Any fan of country, bluegrass, and related music is likely to want to see much more of this archive.