Jody King

Musician
Best known for Banjo

Jody King is a banjo player from southwest Virginia who has worked in bands in Virginia and North Carolina for many years, most of all with Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time. He also plays guitar and bass.

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One of his early jobs was with Lost & Found. On the band’s New Day (Rebel, 1989), recorded at River Tracks Recording Studio in Louisa, Kentucky, he played banjo and sang with Ronnie Bowman on guitar, Dempsey Young on mandolin and Allen Mills on bass. He helped found the band After Five, and he has toured with Ronnie Bowman, with Melonie Cannon, and with Johnny & Jeanette Williams.

He first filled in with Lonesome Standard Time while its banjo player, Kristin Benson, was pregnant, at her suggestion, and took the job when she left for the Grascals; Cordle later put their time together at a decade and a half. In the summer of 2025 he filled in on banjo with Southern Legacy, the band of Josh Williams, Don Rigsby, Steve Thomas, Mike Anglin and Ron Block, while Block was on tour with Alison Krauss & Union Station. In May 2026 Cordle’s label, Mighty Cord Records, released his first single, a bluegrass arrangement of the Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner” with Cordle singing lead. King recorded it at his own studio and played banjo, guitar and bass, with Kim Gardner on Dobro, Chase Johner on mandolin and Aubrey Haynie on fiddle.

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