Join

Charlie McCoy

Musician · Oak Hill, West Virginia · charliemccoy.com

Charlie McCoy is a West Virginia-born Nashville session musician whose harmonica defined an era of country and pop records, whose nineteen-year run as Hee Haw's music director made him a household name, and whose seat at Bob Dylan's 1966–1969 Nashville sessions placed him at the center of the country/folk-rock crossover — a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee.

  • Born Charles Ray McCoy, March 28, 1941 in Oak Hill, West Virginia; raised partly in Fayetteville, WV and later Miami, Florida.
  • Moved to Nashville in 1959 at the urging of Mel Tillis; broke through playing harmonica on Roy Orbison's "Candy Man" (1961).
  • At his peak, played on roughly 400 sessions per year and is identified as a core member of the Nashville A-Team.
  • Played on Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" (guitar on "Desolation Row"), "Blonde on Blonde," "John Wesley Harding" (bass), and "Nashville Skyline," often acting as Dylan's de facto Nashville bandleader.
  • Music director of "Hee Haw" for 19 years.
  • Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (2009) and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame; member of the Musicians Hall of Fame (2007) as part of "The Nashville A-Team."
  • Won a Grammy for "The Real McCoy."
  • Invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in 2022.

Roulette Settings

Calculating…
Popularity
Type
Genres
Bluegrass
Folk
Country
Old-Time
Other
Popularity
Difficulty
Type
Key
Featured Instruments
Origin
All Instrument Tuner
Metronome
Chord Finder

Share Playlist