Then, in 1974, at the high point of their career, they left Decca Records.
“We quit, we just flat out quit,” says Sonny. “They had a housecleaning is what they did, and they released a whole bunch of people, but we were still pretty healthy, and they wanted us to sign a five-year contract with a five-year extension. And we’d never signed an extension – never, not one. So I said no, we aren’t going to do that. Bobby didn’t want to do it either. So we got down to a three-year contract with a three-year clause in it. And I said no, I’m not going to sign that extra three years, because I’m not going to allow you guys to tie us up where we can’t record if you don’t want to release us. I said, here’s the deal: We sign three years, you release everything that we record within three months after we record it. And they wouldn’t do it. So I said, the next thing you can do is get us a signed release, then, and they did. They wanted to be bad boys, so we just bought our unissued masters back from them, got our release and left.”
With the exception of a one-off live album made for RCA a short while later, the Osbornes never recorded for a major label again. Instead, they signed a deal with California’s CMH Records and continued to produce masterful albums, including three double LPs – one with Mac Wiseman, one composed entirely of songs by Felice & Boudleaux Bryant, and one revisiting the classics of their youth and early days (Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and more). Defying expectations, the new versions were even stronger than the originals.
Though their new work was strong, the Osborne Brothers were beginning to relax, helped by the financial security of their publishing company, which owned the rights to some important songs, including Paul Craft’s “Midnight Flyer”, which had been picked up by country-rock megasellers the Eagles. In 1982, Bobby underwent quintuple-bypass heart surgery, and as he returned to performing, their music reflected the less frenzied pace his health demanded.
In 1984, they signed with independent label Sugar Hill and recorded, among other albums, two sets of their best-loved songs in a stripped-down, more acoustic format. “We did that because we thought MCA was going to stop making the Best Of The Osborne Brothers cassette,” Sonny remembers, “so we thought, well, we’ll go in and redo all of them while we’re still singing good, and we had better cuts on some of them than we had on the originals. I loved that stuff we did with Sugar Hill, and we’ve got that into a CD, and I think that’s important, because now the quality of it will never deteriorate.”
GRIN AND BEAR IT
“It helped us, our credibility, tremendously, because you know, anybody that is somebody has got Bear Family. If you don’t have Bear Family you didn’t make it, it’s just almost that simple.”
The 1990s have seen the Osborne Brothers, once the willing center of bluegrass controversy, transformed into elder statesmen of the music. They continue to make regular appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and at festivals and venues around the country. “Rocky Top” was adopted as an official state song of Tennessee in 1982; a remixed version of the tune, with heavy dance beats and dub-style editing, came out in 1996 and was a surprise hit in urban dance clubs, selling well enough to earn an extended stay on the Billboard Country Singles sales chart.
The Osbornes were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Honor in 1994, and 1996 saw the release of their first Bear Family box set, with the second following the next year. “I didn’t want to do that,” Sonny laughs, “I did not want them to do that. Because it just depletes your whole thing, you know. But I was wrong; it didn’t hurt anything, and as a matter of fact it might have helped. It helped us, our credibility, tremendously, because you know, anybody that is somebody has got Bear Family. If you don’t have Bear Family you didn’t make it, it’s just almost that simple.”
Since 1994, the Osborne Brothers have recorded for Florida’s Pinecastle label. Most of their current band – singer/guitarist Terry Eldredge, bassist Terry Smith, dobro player Gene Wooten – has been with them since then; Dana Cupp, Bill Monroe’s last banjo player, joined a couple years ago to play guitar and fill in on banjo and mandolin when Sonny or Bobby are unable to appear, and fiddler David Crow was recently replaced by Shad Cobb.
In 1998, they released Hyden, the first in a series of CDs billed as a document of their career. The second is due out shortly; tentatively entitled Dayton To Knoxville, 1949-1954, it includes songs from the Louvin Brothers, Johnny & Jack, and Flatt & Scruggs, as well as other numbers popular on the radio during their youthful days in those cities. Underlining the album’s retrospective character is the appearance of “Don’t You Hear Jerusalem Mourn” and “Across The Sea Blues”, recorded by Bobby Osborne and Jimmy Martin as demos when they were pursuing their recording contract with King Records in 1950. They’re thinking of bringing back some of their old studio pickers for the next one, “just to make a couple of songs with them,” Sonny says.
“Recording-wise, we just kind of do what we want to. We’re not led by anything, nobody forces us to do anything. Business is fun right now, but we’ve cut way back on dates. I just don’t want to be out there doing that any more, not that much.”
ND contributing editor Jon Weisberger lives in Kenton County, Kentucky, and tries to avoid rigid distinctions between bluegrass and country music.
