Paul Adkins
Paul Adkins is a bluegrass singer, guitarist and songwriter who led Paul Adkins & the Borderline Band. Between 1988 and 1996 the band made an album for Old Homestead and five for Rebel Records. He also played mandolin and sang harmony with Bill Harrell & the Virginians in the mid-1980s, and he is among the past members of J.D. Crowe’s New South.
In Harrell’s band he worked alongside Darrell Sanders, Carl Nelson and Ed Ferris, and he recorded two albums with them for Rebel: Blue Virginia Blue (1986), made at Bias Recording in Springfield, Virginia, and A Song for Everyone (1987). He also made My Old Yellow Car for Webco in 1986, with Harrell, Sanders, Nelson and Ferris backing him.
His next album, Appalachian Memories (Old Homestead, 1987), was cut at Threshold Studios in Roanoke, Virginia. He sang lead and played guitar, with J.D. Crowe on banjo, Steve Thomas on fiddle, Mike Auldridge on Dobro and Lou Reid on electric bass, and Jimmy Gaudreau, Reid and Auldridge sang harmony. Six of its ten songs were his own, among them the title song, “Daddy Was a Coal Mining Man” and “Small Town Lady.”
As Paul Adkins & the Borderline Band he recorded Lay It on the Line (Old Homestead, 1988) at River Tracks Studio in Louisa, Kentucky, with Ned Luberecki on banjo, Ron Pennington on mandolin and Tom Gray on bass. Luberecki and Pennington stayed for the Rebel albums Wings of Gold (1990), Reflections of Love (1991) and Modern Times (1992), all recorded at Bias Recording with Fred Travers on Dobro and Robin Smith on bass. A new lineup with Steve Huber on banjo and Doug Bartlett on mandolin made How Many Roads (1994). For Old Rusty Gate (1996) he worked with Scott Walker on banjo, Jon Glik on fiddle, Dave Lewis on bass and Kevin Short on drums.
