Randy Davis

The BIB learns with regret of the death last Friday of Stephen Randall 'Randy' Davis (photo by Jim Peva) of Asheville, NC, at the age of 65. He played bass and sang harmony as a member of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys from July 1974 to June 1979, taking part in all the band's recording sessions in that period, as well as with other artists. A comprehensive discography, together with many other details and two videos, is in Richard Thompson's obituary on Bluegrass Today.

Though Randy was the youngest member of the band at that time, Bob Black (who joined the Blue Grass Boys on banjo shortly after him) remembered him as being always calm, poised, professional, and focused, and 'the best chopstick handler' among the Blue Grass Boys, who occasionally travelled to shows in Randy's Buick station wagon. Older BIB readers may remember him as the bassist when Bill Monroe and the band played in Belfast in 1975 during a tour of these islands.