Ben Greene

From 1973 he played banjo on Charlie Moore’s Old Homestead sessions at the label’s studio in Brighton, Michigan, in a band that included Curley Lambert on mandolin and Terry Baucom on fiddle; among the songs were “I’ll Break Out Again Tonight” and Moore’s own “Kentucky Girl,” which Old Homestead paired on a single, and the albums On a High High Mountain (1974) and The Fiddler (1975), which includes “Brown Mountain Light.” He also played on Moore’s later albums Avery County and The Legendary Charlie Moore and the Dixie Partners (both 1979).

Later he recorded with David Parmley & Continental Divide on Pathway of Time (Pinecastle, 2001) and with James King on Gardens in the Sky (Rounder, 2008). By 2005 he was the banjo player in Lorraine Jordan’s Carolina Road, and he has been on the band’s records since: Carolina Road (Blue Circle, 2005), with Josh Goforth on fiddle, Carolina Hurricane (Rural Rhythm, 2010), the self-titled Pinecastle album of 2012 with Tommy Long singing lead, Country Grass (2015), True Grass Again (2018) and I Can Go to Them (Pinecastle, 2021), recorded at Old Stage Studio in Garner. In 2017 he played on All Grassed Up, the singer Eddy Raven’s bluegrass album with Carolina Road. At the 2015 SPBGMA awards, where he was named Banjo Performer of the Year, the band’s “That’s Kentucky” was Song of the Year and Jordan was Female Vocalist (Traditional).