Don Reno, Bill Harrell and the Tennessee Cut-Ups

Reno and Smiley had led the Tennessee Cut-Ups together from 1951 until February 1965, when poor health made Smiley retire from the road. Reno then tried a short partnership with the fiddler Benny Martin, in 1965 and 1966, before teaming with Harrell. Born in Marion, Virginia, on 14 September 1934, Harrell had led a band of his own in the Washington, D.C. area, the Virginians, with Smitty Irvin on banjo and Buck Ryan on fiddle, and had made The Wonderful World of Bluegrass Music for United Artists in 1963.

The new partnership went into the studio in 1967. In February it made an LP for Rural Rhythm, and in May, at Charlestown, Indiana, it cut Yellow Pages and The Kings of Bluegrass for Derby Town, both sessions with Reno on banjo, Harrell on guitar, Ronnie Reno on mandolin and George Shuffler on bass. In November and December the band recorded All the Way to Reno (King, 1968) at King’s studio in Cincinnati, with Jim Buchanan and Vassar Clements on fiddles, and a session on 25 June 1968, with Buddy Spicher and Buck Ryan added on fiddle, became I’m Using My Bible for a Road Map (King, 1970).

In 1969 Smiley came back from semi-retirement and toured with the group until his death on 2 January 1972. With Reno, Smiley, Harrell, Buck Ryan and bassist Jerry McCoury, the five-piece band recorded Letter Edged in Black at Wango Studios in Baltimore in 1971 and was taped live that July at the Lone Star Festival in McKinney, Texas. Six months after Smiley’s death, in June 1972, the band made Bluegrass on My Mind for Starday in Nashville, with Ronnie Reno, Ryan and bassist Ellis Padgett, and with Eddie Adcock as a second banjo on some tracks.

For King Bluegrass the group recorded at Lemco Studios in Lexington, Virginia, and Lexington, Kentucky, producing Tally Ho! (October 1973), Rivers & Roads (1974) and Spice of Life (1975). By then the band was Reno, Harrell, Ryan and bassist Ed Ferris, with Dale Reno on mandolin on Spice of Life. In March 1975 they cut Bi-Centennial Bluegrass for Monument at Arthur Smith Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the CMH sessions that followed there produced Dear Old Dixie and the two-LP The Don Reno Story, both in 1976, and Home in the Mountains in 1977. On The Don Reno Story Arthur Smith and Clay Smith play guitar alongside Reno, Harrell, Dale Reno, Ryan and Ferris.

Early in 1977 Harrell and Ferris left on friendly terms to re-form the Virginians. Harrell led that band through the 1980s and into the 1990s, recording for Rebel. Reno died on 16 October 1984 and was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1992. Harrell received the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2008 and died on 24 June 2009.