Blue Ridge Highballers

about

The Blue Ridge Highballers (Charley La Prade on fiddle, Arthur Wells on banjo, and Lonnie Griffith on guitar) were a hyper-charged instrumental string band that prefigured the pace of bluegrass by a quarter of a century, and they tore through their mountain dance tune repertoire like a train at full steam. Charley Washington La Prade was born on November 17, 1888 in Franklin County Virginia, the birthplace of Posey Rorer. He spent the majority of his first 30 years in the Spray, North Carolina area and then subsequently moved to Danville, Virginia. Charley started playing stringed instruments as a boy and he studied for a while under a Swedish violinist. "The Blue Ridge Highballers" were formed in the mid 1920's with Lonnie Griffith on guitar and Arthur Wells on the banjo. The Blue Ridge Highballers cut 16 sides for Columbia in 1926 on March 23 and 24 of which 14 were released. La Prade added John Thomason, fiddle; Lewis B. Adams, guitar; and Lige Hardy, banjo and in 1927 cut 4 sides for Paramount Records. La Prade was still an active fiddler when he died on April 24, 1958. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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