Boyd Bennett

about

Boyd Bennett was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, December 7, 1924. He was raised in the town of Goodlettsville North Davidson County, TN, just outside of Nashville. His family was very musically oriented. Boyd's grandfather instructed members of local churches how to read music and sing biblical songs. He taught Boyd to read shape note music from church hymnals before he could actually read the English printed lyrics. Boyd began singing gospel songs with his grandfather at 4 years of age. He grew up singing gospel music with local quartets. During the hard times of his youth, the aftermath of the Great Depression, Boyd played the guitar and sang outside of the old-time Honky Tonks for whatever donations he could muster from patrons. At the age of 16, in 1941, Boyd's music career was interrupted for four years by the outbreak of World War II. While in service, he perfected the art of playing the guitar. Boyd trained at the San Diego Naval Training Center and served on different Navy troop transports. He suffered a severe leg wound in the Solomon Islands. Unfortunately, he did not realize until later that his lungs and those of all his shipmates were filled with deadly asbestos dust from the insulation on the exposed pipes. This lethal asbestos dust disabled and eventually killed many men who served on these ships years later. Pulmonary fibrosis and mesothelioma (cancer of the lungs) became a fatal curse of the sailors that serv