Elmer Burchett

Burchett joined Junior Sisk and his cousin Tim Massey in Wyatt Rice & Santa Cruz, the band they started with the guitarist Wyatt Rice after meeting him at a party in late 1994; he came to them from Waddy and stayed about three years. Credited as Elmer C. Burchett Jr., he played banjo on the band’s only album, Picture in a Tear (Rounder, October 1996), recorded at Doobie Shea Studios in Ferrum, Virginia, with Sisk on rhythm guitar, Ricky Riddle on mandolin and Massey on bass, and with Dan Tyminski, Aubrey Haynie, Jason Carter, Rickie Simpkins and Kim Gardner as guests. It includes “Molly” and “He Died a Rounder at Twenty-One.”

In August 1997 Sisk, Massey and Burchett left Rice to form their own band, since Rice wanted to explore the progressive side of bluegrass while Sisk and Massey wanted to stay traditional, and with Alan Perdue on mandolin and Jim Van Cleve on fiddle they became Rambler’s Choice. Its one album, Sounds of the Mountains (Rounder, released 13 October 1998), was largely written by Massey and Ronnie Bowman, with the rest by Burchett and Sisk’s father, Harry Sisk Sr. Burchett wrote “Sit and Sing the Blues” and “When the Mountain Dew Starts Falling” and shared “No More Painting Up This Town” with Harry Sisk, Bowman and Massey; he also sang on most of the record, taking the lead verses of “Sweet Country Lovin’,” the lead and tenor on “Enough on My Mind” and baritone on several of the trios. By then he had already left: after months of commuting eight hours to the band, he went in April 1998 to play more with Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek, and Sandy Perdue took over the banjo.

He played banjo and sang with Cody Shuler’s Pine Mountain Railroad on Alone with Forever (Steel Town, 2007), with Shuler on mandolin, Mark Cable on guitar, Bill McBee on bass and Matt Flake on fiddle, and wrote three of its songs: “Nowhere, Caroline,” with Cable, “Whippoorwill,” with Mollie Jo Irvin, and “Who Picks the Banjer (’Round Here).” He also played banjo on two tracks of the band’s 2008 Rural Rhythm album of hymns. His “Big Black Wheels” was sung by Russell Moore on the Rice-Menzone Alliance’s Something Out of the Blue (2016).