Joe Val
Musician · Everett, Massachusetts
Best known for
Mandolin
Joe Val was a Massachusetts-born mandolinist and lead singer whose piercing high tenor and Boston-based New England Bluegrass Boys made him the foremost figure in 1970s and 80s Northeast bluegrass — a posthumous IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee whose namesake festival has run annually since 1986.
- Born Joseph Paul Valiante on June 26, 1926 in Everett, Massachusetts; died June 11, 1985 of lymphoma diagnosed in 1984.
- Italian-American; got his first guitar from his grandmother at age 14, then switched to mandolin and bluegrass after hearing Bill Monroe.
- Stage name "Val" bestowed by Tex Logan, who found "Valiante" too cumbersome at a Boston venue.
- Apprenticed under the Lilly Brothers in Boston; played with the Charles River Valley Boys in the mid-1960s and the Bill Keith / Jim Rooney Band.
- Founded Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys in 1970, the band that defined his career through 1985; possessed a soaring high-tenor lead voice and is credited with popularizing bluegrass throughout New England.
- Day job for much of his career was repairing typewriters; played a 1923 Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin engraved on his headstone.
- Posthumously received the IBMA Award of Merit (Distinguished Achievement Award) in 1995.
- Posthumously inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2018; the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, run annually by the Boston Bluegrass Union since 1986, is named in his honor.
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Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass BoysPlayed on recordings with Joe Val and the New England Bluegrass Boys
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The Charles River Valley BoysPlayed on recording with The Charles River Valley Boys