Fred Kirby

The career of Fred Kirby proves that a performer who finds the right regional basis can sustain a lengthy career and be incredibly influential without leaving town. His accomplishments are a bit like an extremely slow motion version of a winning one-two punch combination. On one hand, there is the early Kirby career as a talented cowboy singer and string band player in the historic days of both the recording and broadcast industry. There are fine Kirby recordings that have been reissued from this period, with and without his Charlotte-based colleagues the Briarhoppers, a long-...