Recently, the West Virginia Music Hall Of Fame announced the names of those to be inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall Of Fame this year. Among them are the Clear Creak, Raleigh County, bluegrass trio the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover.

Also named are Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, but more of them another time.

Michel Burt ‘B’ Lilly (born December 15, 1921, died September 18, 2005) and Charles Everett Lilly (born July 1, 1924) began performing together as a brother duet act, Everett playing mandolin, banjo and fiddle, and ‘B’ playing guitar. While still only teenagers they made their radio debut in 1938, playing a guest spot as the Lonesome Holler Boys on the Old Farm Hour on Charleston’s WCHS.

In 1939, they began performing regularly at the newly-established WKLS Beckley, where they performed together and with other musicians, such as ‘Speedy’ Krise. In the summer of 1945 they moved to WNOX Knoxville where they worked with Lynn Davis and Molly O’Day for a while and then formed the Smiling Mountain Boys with fiddler Burk Barbour and Paul Taylor, a banjo player who was also from West Virginia.

Three years later the Lilly Brothers moved to Wheeling’s WWVA where they were the star turn in Red Belcher’s Kentucky Ridge Runners group. Everett and ‘B’ cut a single for Page Records and ‘B’ and the recently befriended fiddler ‘Tex’ Logan helped Belcher do a couple of sides for the same label. Also, at about this time the brothers cut four songs for the Cozy label.

They remained in Wheeling until 1950, when a dispute with Belcher led to Everett and ‘B’ to leave Belcher and, eventually to return home. In the early 1950s, Everett spent about two years playing mandolin and singing tenor with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, participating in two recording sessions that produced 14 songs in all.

Early in 1952 the brothers were persuaded by Logan to move to Boston where they were joined by banjo player Don Stover (born March 6, 1928 – died November 11, 1996). They got their first job playing on WCOP’s Hayloft Jamboree and from there the Confederate Mountaineers, as the quartet was known, worked at various clubs such as the Hayloft Jamboree and the Boston Jamboree, but most notably at the Hillbilly Ranch. For 18 years, with only a brief interlude when Everett re-joined Flatt & Scruggs and Stover toured with other bands, they played constantly in Boston area. As a result they have been credited with bringing bluegrass to New England and with influencing such future bluegrass artists as Peter Rowan, Jim Rooney and Bill Keith, among others. (more…)