Earl Taylor and Jim McCall

Taylor, born at Rose Hill in Lee County, Virginia, in 1929, had led the Stoney Mountain Boys in the Baltimore area, played Carnegie Hall with them in April 1959 and then moved to Cincinnati, where he worked clubs, radio and television into the mid-1960s. McCall was already recording with him in 1962, singing and playing guitar on a Rebel session, probably at Wynwood Studios in Falls Church, Virginia, with Walter Hensley on banjo and Scott Stoneman on fiddle, that produced “Calling Your Name” and “Stoney Mountain Twist.”

After his spells with the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin and Flatt & Scruggs, Taylor came back to Cincinnati and re-formed the Stoney Mountain Boys, and around 1966, probably in Akron, he and McCall recorded twenty songs and instrumentals for Rural Rhythm with Vernon “Boatwhistle” McIntyre Jr. on banjo, his father Vernon McIntyre Sr. on bass and Paul Mullins on fiddle. Issued in December 1967 as 20 Bluegrass Favorites, it included “Little Maggie,” “Pretty Polly,” “John Hardy,” “Down in the Willow Garden,” “Lonesome Road Blues” and “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.” In 1967 both men also played on Ralph Stanley’s first King sessions as a leader, Taylor on mandolin and harmonica and McCall on bass.

In the early 1970s Taylor and McCall were working the Cincinnati and Columbus area again, and a second Rural Rhythm session, again probably in Akron, filled two more albums, released in July 1971 as volumes two and three of Rural Rhythm Presents Earl Taylor and Jim McCall. This time the band was McCall on guitar and dobro, Taylor on mandolin and harmonica, Harley Gabbard on dobro, Tim Spradlin on banjo, Charles Hoskins on bass and Gene Lawson on drums, and the material ranged from “Little Henry Lee,” “State of Arkansas” and “Poor Rebel Soldier” to “Kansas City Blues,” “New Hesitation Blues,” “Hillbilly Preacher” and “Washington Lee Swing.”

McCall also made a solo album for Vetco, Pickin’ & Singin’, in the early 1970s, then two Vetco albums with Vernon McIntyre and two singles for the REM label, and he played and recorded around Cincinnati with Benny Birchfield and with McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. Taylor led later Stoney Mountain Boys lineups into the mid-1970s and died on 28 January 1984; McCall died on 9 February 2010. Rural Rhythm reissued the first album on CD as 20 Bluegrass Favorites and selections from the 1971 volumes as 24 Bluegrass Favorites in 2007.