Jim McCall

Musician · 1930–2010
Best known for Bass

Jim McCall was a singer and guitarist who was a mainstay of the Cincinnati bluegrass scene for decades. He shared the billing with the mandolin player Earl Taylor on three albums for Rural Rhythm, played bass on Ralph Stanley’s first King albums after Carter Stanley’s death, and later led the Appalachian Grass with the banjo player Vernon McIntyre.

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McCall was working with Earl Taylor by 1962, when he sang and played guitar on a Rebel session, probably at Wynwood Studios in Falls Church, Virginia, with Walter Hensley on banjo and Scott Stoneman on fiddle, that produced “Calling Your Name” and “Stoney Mountain Twist.” Around 1966, probably in Akron, Ohio, he and Taylor recorded twenty songs and instrumentals for Rural Rhythm with Vernon McIntyre Jr. on banjo, his father Vernon “Boatwhistle” McIntyre on bass and Paul Mullins on fiddle; issued in December 1967, the album included “Little Maggie,” “Pretty Polly,” “John Hardy” and “Down in the Willow Garden.”

In 1967 he played bass at Ralph Stanley’s first King sessions in Cincinnati after Carter Stanley’s death, on 19 May and 24 October, with Larry Sparks and Melvin Goins on guitars, Taylor on mandolin and harmonica and Curly Ray Cline on fiddle; the album was Brand New Country Songs (King, 1968). He was on bass again for Stanley’s sessions of 14 and 15 July 1969 at the Starday studio in Nashville, issued as Hills of Home. In 1968 he recorded his own album at Jewel Recording Studio in Cincinnati, with McIntyre on banjo, Fred Spencer on mandolin, Roy Lee Centers on second guitar and Elizabeth McIntyre on electric bass; Vetco released it in 1972 as Pickin’ & Singin’, with “Columbus Stockade Blues,” “In the Pines,” “Take This Hammer,” “Rebel Soldier” and the instrumental “Train 45.”

A second Rural Rhythm session with Taylor, again probably in Akron, had McCall on guitar and dobro with Harley Gabbard on dobro, Tim Spradlin on banjo, Charles Hoskins on bass and Gene Lawson on drums, and filled volumes two and three of Rural Rhythm Presents Earl Taylor and Jim McCall, released in July 1971; Rural Rhythm later reissued the albums on CD as 20 Bluegrass Favorites and 24 Bluegrass Favorites. By 1971 McCall and Vernon McIntyre were leading the Appalachian Grass at Aunt Maudie’s on Main Street in Cincinnati, and the two made a pair of albums for Vetco, among them Jim McCall, Vernon McIntyre and the Appalachian Grass. He also cut four sides for the REM label, issued as two singles, with McIntyre, Gabbard, Mullins and Benny Birchfield, and played and recorded with Birchfield around Cincinnati. His son Dwight McCall became a mandolin player and singer with J.D. Crowe and the New South. Jim McCall died on 9 February 2010.

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