Bill Browning
Musician · 1931–1977 · Wayne County, West Virginia
Best known for
Songwriter
Bill Browning was a West Virginia coal miner’s son, country singer, and songwriter whose 1958 recording of his own “Dark Hollow” — based in part on the traditional “East Virginia Blues” — entered the bluegrass and folk-revival repertoire after the Grateful Dead and Jimmie Skinner picked it up. He spent his last years running the small Alta Records label and a recording studio out of Hurricane, West Virginia.
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- Born Wilmer Lois Browning on May 16, 1931, in Wayne County, West Virginia.
- Father was a coal miner who brought home Bill’s first guitar when he was thirteen; the family grew up on Dry Ridge near St. Albans, in Kanawha County.
- Formed the Kanawha Valley Boys with brother Carlos Browning and Lou West; the band broadcast live on Charleston’s WTIP from late 1947 to 1950.
- Cut “Borned with the Blues” backed with “Dark Hollow” with his Echo Valley Boys in 1958; the B-side became his lasting work.
- “Dark Hollow” was later carried into the standard repertoire by Jimmie Skinner and, separately, by the Grateful Dead, who turned it into one of their long-running concert staples.
- Moved to Hurricane, West Virginia, in the early 1970s and opened a recording studio; ran Alta Records until his death.
- Died of cancer on January 23, 1977, four months shy of his forty-sixth birthday.
