Dave Evans

He was born William Evans on 24 July 1950 in Portsmouth, Ohio, and grew up in Columbus, where as a youngster he heard local bluegrass players such as Sid Campbell, Landon Rowe and Ralph “Robbie” Robinson. His father played old-time banjo, but Dave was drawn to the three-finger style of Earl Scruggs, and in his teens he began singing and writing songs; he wrote “Highway 52” when he was thirteen. His first professional job, in 1968, was playing banjo for Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys. In 1969 he went back to Columbus and worked clubs and theaters there.

Larry Sparks hired him for the Lonesome Ramblers in 1972 or 1973, and he stayed about three years. He played banjo and sang tenor or baritone behind Sparks on three albums made in 1973 and 1974, mostly at Lemco Studio in Lexington, Kentucky, with Wendy Miller on mandolin and Art Wydner on bass: The Lonesome Sounds of Larry Sparks & the Lonesome Ramblers (Old Homestead, 1974), The Footsteps of Tradition (King Bluegrass, 1974) and Sparklin’ Bluegrass (King Bluegrass, 1975). Evans later said that singing tenor with Sparks helped him define his own vocal style. He moved on to the Goins Brothers, Red Allen and the Boys from Indiana, and also worked with Lillie Mae and the Dixie Gospelaires.

He formed Dave Evans and River Bend in 1978. Its first album, Highway Fifty Two (Vetco, 1979), had Evans on banjo and guitar and six of his own songs, the title song and “Carry Me Back to the Bluegrass” among them, and Call Me Long Gone (Vetco, 1980) paired him with the multi-instrumentalist Buddy Griffin and the Dobro player Josh Graves. The same year Graves made Playing It Simple for Vetco with Evans, Griffin and David Pinson. The band then moved to Rebel, recording at first at Riverside Sound Studios in Ashland, Kentucky. Goin’ Round This World (1981) introduced “Be Proud of the Gray in Your Hair” and “One Loaf of Bread,” and A Few More Seasons (1982), Poor Rambler (1983) and Close to Home (1985) followed, the last with Johnny Brown on guitar, Wendy Miller on mandolin, Jon Glik on fiddle and Gene Hurd on bass. In all he made nine albums for Rebel, with the band or under his own name, and in 1984 he recorded a duet album with Emma Smith, Don’t Let Me Cross Over, for Rutabaga.

His career stopped in 1989, when he began a prison sentence for assault that lasted until 1995. He came back to music in 1997 with two albums for the Neon label, Just Look at Me Now (1997) and High Waters (1998), and then returned to Rebel. Bad Moon Shining came out in March 2000 under the River Bend name. Hang Out a Light for Me (2002), recorded at River Tracks Studio in Louisa, Kentucky, had Scottie Sparks, Don Rigsby, Hunter Berry, Randy Kohrs and Mike Bub in the band, with Evans singing lead and playing banjo and, on one track, guitar, and Pretty Green Hills (2006) had Bobby Hicks on fiddle. Rebel collected the early River Bend sides on The Best of the Vetco Years in 2008.

Evans retired from performing in 2010 and died on 26 June 2017, at 66. Last of the Breed, a documentary about his life and music, was produced by Matthew Pellowski, with Tom T. Hall as an associate producer.