JAMES KING

• From Cana, Virginia but lived most of his life in Amelia, Virginia at the foot of Fancy Gap Mountain.
• Started playing rock music at age 12. Was a big fan of Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Steppenwolf. Then at age 15, someone turned him on to the Stanley Brothers. “That music was in my blood all the time, I just didn’t know it.”
• He was a furniture refinisher by trade.
• His father was a fiddler. He was also strongly influenced by Ted Lundy.
• 1982, played with a band called the Chesapeake Bay Boys.
• 1983, joined Dealer’s Choice
• 1985-8, joined the Blinky Moon Boys
• 1985, recorded with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.
• 1988, formed his first band: James King, Brian Wetzel and the Misty Valley Boys.
• 1989, released “It’s a Cold Cold World” album (Webco).
• 1991-1992, joined Big Country Bluegrass.
• 1993, released These Old Pictures album (Rounder).
• 1995, released Lonesome and Then Some album (Rounder).
• 1996, played the Grand Ole Opry for the first time.
• 1997, won the IBMA award for Emerging Artist of the Year.
• 1997, recorded with Dudley Connell, Marshall Wilburn, Don Rigsby, Joe Mullins and Glen Duncan in a group called Longview.
• 1998, released Bed By the Window album (Rounder).
• 2002, released Thirty Years of Farming album (Rounder).
• 2005, released The Bluegrass Storyteller album (Rounder).
• 2008, released Gardens In The Sky: The Bluegrass Gospel Of James King album (Rounder).
• 2013, released Three Chords & The Truth album (Rounder).
• 2016, died at the age of 58 after a long illness.