Audie Blaylock and Redline

Blaylock was born in El Paso, Texas, grew up in Lansing, Michigan, and played guitar and mandolin in regional bands while still in school. In 1982 he took the mandolin job with Jimmy Martin, and he spent the next nine years as a Sunny Mountain Boy. He then played with Red Allen and with Harley Allen; when Red Allen died in 1993 he joined the Lynn Morris Band, and for a short time he played with Chris Jones & the Night Drivers. From 1999 to 2003 he sang and played guitar with Rhonda Vincent & the Rage, which was named IBMA Entertainer of the Year in 2001.

He coordinated A Tribute to Jimmy Martin: The King of Bluegrass (Koch, 2004), recorded at Skaggs Place Studios, singing lead and playing guitar with Kenny Ingram or J.D. Crowe on banjo, Jesse Brock or Paul Williams on mandolin, Michael Cleveland on fiddle and, on most tracks, Jason Moore on bass. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award and for the IBMA’s Recorded Event of the Year. Redline, meanwhile, was nominated for IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2005 and 2006.

The band was set aside in 2006 and 2007, when Blaylock fronted the fiddler Michael Cleveland’s Flamekeeper, credited as Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper featuring Audie Blaylock; that group was named IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year in 2007. Blaylock then reactivated Redline, which signed with Rural Rhythm in 2008. Audie Blaylock & Redline (January 2009), produced by Blaylock, had Jason Johnson on mandolin, Evan Ward on banjo, Patrick McAvinue on fiddle and Matt Wallace on bass, with liner notes by Carl Jackson, and Cryin’ Heart Blues followed in 2010.

I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky: A Bill Monroe Celebration (Rural Rhythm, 2011) paired the band, with Russ Carson on banjo and Reed Jones on bass, with Ronnie McCoury on mandolin, guest fiddlers Glen Duncan and Jason Carter, and vocal guests Lou Reid, Bobby Osborne, Del McCoury and Carl Jackson. Hard Country (Rural Rhythm, 2012), produced by Scott Vestal, was recorded at Digital Underground in Greenbrier, Tennessee, with Carson, the mandolinist Jesse Brock, McAvinue and the bassist Jason Moore, and drew on songs by Harley Allen, Ira Louvin and Cris Jacobs, among others.

The band moved to Patuxent for The Road That Winds (2016), with Ward, McAvinue and Jones. Originalist (615 Hideaway, 2019), with Ward, Mason Wright on fiddle and Jones on bass, was the first release on that label and split about evenly between new songs written within the band and classic covers. Blaylock died on 10 January 2024 at his home in Auburn, Indiana, at the age of 61.