Bobby Sumner

The first band was Carter Stanley on guitar, Ralph Stanley on banjo, Darrell “Pee Wee” Lambert on mandolin and Sumner on fiddle. It began with a morning slot on WNVA, a small station in Norton, Virginia, and played only a handful of personal appearances before moving to WCYB in Bristol, where its Farm and Fun Time program first aired on 26 December 1946. Sumner was soon replaced by Leslie Keith.

He was back on fiddle on 1 March 1949, when Columbia recorded the band at Castle Studio in the Tulane Hotel in Nashville in two sessions, with Jay Hughes on bass and Lambert singing baritone to the brothers’ lead and tenor. The eight sides were “A Vision of Mother,” “The White Dove,” “Gathering Flowers from the Master’s Bouquet,” “The Angels Are Singing in Heaven Tonight,” “It’s Never Too Late,” “Have You Someone (in Heaven Awaiting),” “Little Glass of Wine” and “Let Me Be Your Friend.” The fiddler Art Stamper, later a Clinch Mountain Boy himself, named “the Sumners (Bobby & Marion)” among the fiddlers he heard growing up and said he associated himself more with Bobby.