ADCO RECORDS       
A Cincinnati label owned by “Hobo” Jack Adkins.  He recorded himself as well as Gurney Adkins and Ray Goins, Don McHan, Cuddles C. Newsome, and several gospel groups.

ALLEN BROTHERS  
The Allen Brothers were a Dayton band formed by Red Allen’s four sons.  They performed with Red and also independently.  Harley sang lead and tenor and played guitar and mandolin, Neal played mandolin and wrote some of their songs, Greg played banjo and sang baritone, and Ronnie played bass and sang baritone.  They recorded three LPs with Red on King Bluegrass Records and three albums on their own, two on Rounder and one on Folkways.  They started appearing together in the early 1970s.  Neal passed away in 1974 but the remaining three brothers continued on until the early 1980s.  Harley left to write songs in Nashville and Greg and Ronnie are back playing music together at the Stockyards Restaurant in Dayton in 2006.

ALLEN-LILLY BAND 
The Allen-Lilly Band was one of the most exciting and tightest bluegrass bands ever based in Dayton.  Harley Allen was featured on lead vocal and guitar, Mike Lilly on banjo, Scotty Adams on mandolin,  and Steve Bryant on bass.
 
ANTIOCH COLLEGE
Located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Antioch College (now University) has long been friendly to bluegrass music.  At the school’s Kelly Hall, the first bluegrass concert on a college campus was held on March 5, 1960, headlined by the Osborne Brothers.  Antioch’s WYSO radio station has programmed live and recorded bluegrass and old-time country music for many years.  The “WYSO Country Jamboree” was presented at Kelly Hall for a time.  Since 2002, “Banks of the Ohio”, a weekly web/broadcast/satellite program dealing with the history of bluegrass music originates at WYSO.  Hosted by long-time broadcast personality and bluegrass authority Fred Bartenstein, it is a production of the International Bluegrass Music Museum.

APACHE CLUB
Located on Germantown Pike near the old Dayton Speedway, the Apache Club was one of the early venues for the Osborne Brothers.

APPALACHIAN FESTIVAL           
Cincinnati’s celebration of its Appalachian culture, the Appalachian Festival is observing its 37th year in 2006.  It is presented by the Appalachian Community Development Association each Mothers’ Day weekend, and features bluegrass music, storytelling, crafts, living history, food, and dancing.

APPALACHIAN GRASS     
The Appalachian Grass is a traditional but also progressive and a very professional bluegrass group.  The early band included Jim McCall on guitar and vocals, Katie Laur on vocals, “Junior” McIntyre on banjo, Dave Cox on mandolin, and Dalen Jackson on bass.

ARK RECORDS           
A Cincinnati label owned by Roy Shepherd and Bill Lanham, Ark Records issued over 125 releases in the early 1960s, all country, gospel, or bluegrass.  Bluegrass artists with records on Ark included J.D. Jarvis, Old Joe Clark, Harley Gabbard, the Pelfrey Brothers, Jimmy Murphy, Jack Cooke, the Baker Brothers, and Dave Woolum.

ARVIS RECORDS       
Arvis was a short-lived Cincinnati label (about 15 releases) from the early 1960s.  It was owned by Estel Lee (Scarborough) and probably Bob Mooney.  They issued two records by Harley Gabbard and the Burns Brothers, one by Dave Woolum, and one by Ernest Stacy and Harlin Kazy.

AUNT MAUDIE’S COUNTRY GARDEN         
Aunt Maudie’s was a Cincinnati bar at 1207 Main Street in the Over-the-Rhine District which was opened by Lou Ukelson around 1971.  It featured bluegrass, most notably Earl Taylor and Jim McCall and the Stoney Mountain Boys.  It was patronized by Appalachian people as well as local college students who were into bluegrass at the time.

BABE’S PLACE           
Babe’s Place was a bar on East Fifth Street in Dayton near Stivers High School.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s it played host to the Easterners and other bluegrass bands.

BARRELHEAD GANG         
Smokey Ward’s radio troupe when he was at WPFB in Middletown was known as the Barrelhead Gang.  Some of the musicians that were a part of the group at various times included Jimmy Martin, J.D. Crowe, Jim and Jesse McReynolds, Fairley Holden, Jo DePew and Wayne Tilford, and the Osborne Brothers.

BEACONS           
The Beacons are a bluegrass gospel group that performs primarily in churches around the tri-state area of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.  Started in 1993, their 2006 lineup includes Leo Howell and Ray Townsend on guitars, Mike Terry on mandolin, Tim Monroe on fiddle and guitar, Gary Hopkins on bass, and Sherrill Jennings on banjo.  Notable former members include New Found Road’s Tim Shelton and WBZI Radio station owner and banjo player Joe Mullins.

BGRASS, INC.  
Bgrass, Inc. preserves and celebrates bluegrass music and its heritage in the Cincinnati/Dayton region.  Thanks to a confluence of commercial and social factors, the Cincinnati-Dayton Region has played a unique and consistent role in fostering bluegrass from its inception in the late 1940s.  Communities of Appalachian migrants provided local audiences for bluegrass performers, while radio stations and independent record labels and studios disseminated their work throughout the region and around the country. The result has been not only vitally important music, but a rich, distinctive social and cultural history that can shed much light on the origin and development of the music.  Many of the sources from which such a history can be compiled are in danger of disappearing, as musicians and other participants grow older, materials decay or disappear, and social and economic forces alter the audiences and institutions that have sustained the music. We stand in danger of irreplaceable losses with the passage of time and changes in circumstances, and such losses will have an effect not only on regional musicians and audiences, but on the entire field of bluegrass music and its study.

BIG 4 HITS RECORDS         
Big 4 Hits was one of Carl Burkhardt’s cover labels.  They purported to be a better value because they all had four songs instead of two, hence the label name.  Most of the releases were country and some were reissues of Kentucky and Gateway material.  There was some bluegrass by Sonny Osborne, Billy Thomas, and Ray Anderson.

BITTER END      
At 401 Wayne Avenue in Dayton, Ohio, the Bitter End is where the Osborne Brothers were appearing in the mid 1960s.  Earlier, it had been known as Johnny’s Night Club.

BLACKSMITH SHOP
Located in McGonigle, Ohio, the Blacksmith Shop was a roadhouse on U.S. Route 27, a few miles south of Oxford.  In the early 1930s, Jimmie Skinner appeared there in a band called The Krazy Kats.  In the 1950s the house band was the Sandy Valley Boys, who could play country, bluegrass, and rockabilly and included Don Boone, Nelson Young, Roy Marcum, Glen Scott, future Hee-Haw star Kenny Price, Bill “Zekie” Browning, and Herman Kress.  Directly across the street was the Twilight Inn, that had extended bookings for blues artist Lonnie Mack and big band leader Tommy Wills.  Later on, the Blacksmith Shop became the Rusty Nail.

BLAZING STUMP BAR        
A constant for many years on East Fifth Street in Dayton in what is now known as the Oregon District, the Blazing Stump featured country and bluegrass music.  In its heyday, it probably qualified as one of those bars referred to as “skull orchards.”

BLUE MOUNTAIN BOYS (ALLEN/BROCK)
The Blue Mountain Boys were put together by Red Allen around 1952 or 1953 to do an eight-week tour of Kentucky and a short tour in Chicago.  The band consisted of Red Allen, Carlos Brock, Lonnie Brock, and fiddler Johnnie McKee.  It was billed as Red Allen, Carlos Brock, and the Blue Mountain Boys.  It was a learning experience for four young musicians.

BLUE MOUNTAIN BOYS (LEWIS)        
On a 1951 recording session for MGM Records at Herzog Studios in Cincinnati, Joe “Cannonball” Lewis billed his band as the Blue Mountain Boys.  In addition to Joe, the band consisted of James “Shorty” Whitaker on mandolin, Ray Brandenburg on banjo, Coy Farmer on rhythm guitar, probably Billy Thomas on fiddle, and an unknown bass player.

BLUE NOTE RECORD SHOP
The Blue Note was located in a house on North Dixie Drive in Dayton, Ohio, a few blocks north of the traffic circle.  They carried a good stock of country and bluegrass records, originally 78 rpms, but later 45s and LPs.  Carlos Brock cited the Blue Note as the place he and his brother went to buy records to learn the songs they would later sing in the bars around Dayton.

BOONE COUNTY JAMBOREE   
WLW’s hillbilly barn-dance-type show was the Boone County Jamboree, starting in 1939 and continuing until the mid 1940s.  Grandpa Jones, the Delmore Brothers, Merle Travis, Bradley Kincaid, Curly Fox, and Texas Ruby all were members of the Boone County Jamboree.

BOYS FROM INDIANA         
The nucleus of the Boys From Indiana was brothers Aubrey and Jerry Holt and their uncle Harley Gabbard.  Aubrey and Harley had been performing together off and on since the 1950s and lived in southern Indiana.  The Holt brothers and Harley were friends with Paul “Moon” Mullins, who at the time was doing a DJ show at WPFB in Middletown.  When “Moon” would need an opening act for some of the live shows he would bring to Middletown, he would call on “them boys from Indiana” and they would come over and join with “Moon” and Noah Crase to open the show.  After a while, the five of them decided to go on the road and just called themselves The Boys From Indiana with Paul Mullins and Noah Crase.  They cut a gospel LP on Jewel, but when they signed with King Bluegrass and recorded “Atlanta Is Burning” in 1974, things opened up for them.  They did four LPs on King Bluegrass.  In the late 1970s, “Moon” and Noah decided to get off the road but Aubrey, Harley, and Jerry continued on after adding new band members.  They recorded four more LPs on their own Old Heritage label and one on Atteiram.  Rebel Records acquired their King Bluegrass recordings and continues to reissue them from time to time.

BROWN’S FERRY FOUR   
A gospel quartet formed at WLW in Cincinnati by Merle Travis, Grandpa Jones, and Alton and Rabon Delmore, the Browns Ferry Four recorded 44 songs on King Records in the late 1940s and early 1950s and pretty much set the standard for later gospel quartets.  Many years later, the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet was modeled after the Brown’s Ferry Four.

CANAL STREET TAVERN
Located at First Street and Patterson Boulevard in Dayton and known at one time as Evelyn’s Corner Cafe, the Canal Street Tavern became the listening room for acoustic music in Dayton when Mick Montgomery bought it in the early 1980s. The size of the room is a blessing when it comes to good listening but it also limits the acts to local groups, national acts on the verge of making it, acts from the past, and single performers.  Bluegrass, traditional country, cajun, folk, and rock all have a place here.  Bluegrass perennials the Dry Branch Fire Squad play two nights every year around New Year’s.  Bluegrass legend Frank Wakefield has played the Tavern several times as has bluegrass guitar superstar Tony Rice, as well as the New Grass Revival, the Seldom Scene, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Red Allen and the Allen Brothers, and John Hartford. The western group Riders In the Sky has played here numerous times, as has Cajun legend D.L. Menard and western swing group Hot Club of Cowtown.  One-time local TV personality and country yodeler Kenny Roberts has played the Canal Steet, as has Ohio country star Bobby Bare.

CASA GRANDE           
The Casa Grande was the Cincinnati night spot where Joe “Cannonball” Lewis played after leaving the Wiggle Inn in the late 1940s.

CENTRAL RECORDS          
A Middletown label owned by Delbert Barker and probably Steve Lake, Central issued a lot of custom records for local bluegrass bands in the 1980s.

CHARLEY’S TAVERN          
Owned by Charles Brown in the 1950s, Charley’s Tavern was located at 156 Brown Street in Dayton, Ohio.  The Brock Brothers and Noah Crase played there and, a little later on, Bob and Sonny Osborne were there.

CHATAUQUA PARK 
Opened in the late 19th century, the park was a stop on the nationwide Chautauqua circuit which promoted religious and evangelical programs as well as musical shows.  Located between Miamisburg and Franklin on the Great Miami River, it became a home for bluegrass and country shows when Steve Lake began promoting shows in the open air auditorium in the late 1960s.  The first annual Chatauqua Bluegrass Festival on September 10, 1967 headlined Ralph Stanley with Larry Sparks singing lead, Bill Monroe, the Osborne Brothers, Don Reno and Bill Harrell, Jim McCall and Earl Taylor, Moon Mullins and the Valley Ramblers, the Moore Brothers, and the Cornhuskers.

CIRCLE BAR     
The Circle Bar was at 429 West Third Street in Dayton in the early 1950s and was owned by Nathan and Julius Chudde.  It was on the north side of West Third Street; the Spur and the Friendly Inn were on the south side.  An ever-changing combination of young bluegrass musicians that included Red Allen, Carlos and Lonnie Brock, Red Spurlock, Johnnie McKee, Noah Crase, and Bob and Sonny Osborne alternated among these places.  When urban renewal came to Dayton in the 1960s, all these bars were demolished, along with almost everything else between Wilkinson Street and the Miami River, replaced with various government buildings, Sinclair College, and other buildings.

CITYFOLK           
A nonprofit arts organization, Cityfolk began in 1980 as a grassroots project to organize more traditional and ethnic arts events in the Dayton area.  It brought the National Folk Festival to Dayton from 1996 through 1998, and has sponsored an annual folk festival since then.  Some of the more notable bluegrass events sponsored or co-sponsored by the organization include “The Buckeye Barndance” at the Victory Theatre in 1985, “The Dayton Bluegrass Reunion” at Memorial Hall in 1989, and the “Earl Scruggs:  Family and Friends” banjo workshop and concert at the Nutter Center in 2002.  The organization was guided through the first 18 years of its existence by the dedication, enthusiasm, and hard work of founder Phyllis Brzozowska.

CLINCH MOUNTAIN BOYS           
The Stanley Brothers named their band the Clinch Mountain Boys for the most prominent natural feature of their southwest Virginia home community.  Ralph Stanley continued to use the name after he began his solo career.  Some of the musicians who went through the Stanley Brothers version of the Clinch Mountain Boys were fiddlers, Art Wooten, Art Stamper, Lester Woodie, Ralph Mayo, and Chubby Anthony.  Mandolin players included Pee Wee Lambert, Curley Lambert, and Bill Napier, who also played lead guitar.  George Shuffler and Chick Stripling were a couple of the bass players; Shuffler was also featured on lead guitar.  Ralph used a lot of lead singers over the years: Larry Sparks, Roy Lee Centers, Charlie Sizemore, Keith Whitley, Ralph Stanley II, and others.  George Shuffler, Melvin Goins, and Jack Cooke were some of the bass players.  Curly Ray Cline was the fiddle player for many years and Ricky Skaggs played fiddle and mandolin in the early 1970s.  Lead guitar players have included Ricky Lee, Junior Blankenship and James Allen Shelton.

COLLINS RADIO AND TV  
Located at 5449 West Third Street in Drexel on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio, Collins’ main business was repairing radios and TVs and installing TV aerials and towers.  However they maintained an inventory of 45 RPM country and bluegrass records, including those by local artists which were non-existent in the big record stores in the 1950s.

CORN DRINKERS      
They are more old-time country than bluegrass, but the Corn Drinkers have been around the Dayton area for many years, playing the traditional music, which was the forerunner of bluegrass.  They have done a lot in conjunction with WYSO and played for square dances at Carriage Hill and other places.  Members are Barb Kuhns, Linda Scutt, Tom Duffee, Doug Smith, and Al Turnbull.

COUNTRY GRASS     
This Country Grass was from Springfield and had a very tight and professional band.  They played around Dayton and Springfield and also in Indiana and did some of the bluegrass festivals.  At their peak in the 1970s, the band included Wayne Horsley on guitar and lead vocal, Bob Ferguson on banjo, Ted Wallace on mandolin and tenor vocal, Elmer Huff on dobro, and Johnny Carroll on bass.

COUNTRY PARDNERS       
The Country Pardners were from the Cincinnati-Dayton area and included Bill Price on mandolin, Carlos Brock on guitar, and Bobby Simpson on banjo.  They had three singles released on RCA Victor in 1956.  Although the records were good solid bluegrass, they weren’t able to achieve the same level of success as Jimmy Martin and the Osborne Brothers did on the same label at roughly the same point in time.

CRYING COWBOY SALOON       
The Crying Cowboy was located at 109 West Main Street in Springfield.  Proprietor Dewaine Dodds began featuring bluegrass music in the mid 1970s.  The Dry Branch Fire Squad began their long career there, and in fact cut their first album there live in 1977.

CRYSTAL PISTOL     
A large night club at 300 North Broad Street in Fairborn, Ohio, close to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Crystal Pistol booked name country and bluegrass bands on the weekends in the 1970s.  The Osborne Brothers appeared there several times when they were at the peak of their popularity.  At one time, it was called The Grand Ole Opry, but they were probably forced to change the name to the Crystal Pistol because the Opry frowned on other entities using their name.

DELMORE BROTHERS      
Alton and Rabon Delmore were probably the most versatile of the brother duets.  They did soft brother-style harmony in the 1930s, hillbilly boogie and pre-rockabilly in the 1940s, and blues in the 1950s.  Their most significant contribution to bluegrass came when they were at Cincinnati’s WLW and King Records, where, with Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis, they formed the Brown’s Ferry Four which set the standard for gospel quartet singing for years to come.  The Delmore Brothers have been elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

DEW MOUNTAIN BOYS      
Lee Allen’s band was called the Dew Mountain Boys.  At the time of their second Jalyn LP in 1974, the band consisted of Lee Allen on guitar and lead vocals, Ron Thomason on mandolin, Lloyd Hensley on banjo, and Sherry Tuttle on bass.  They had a long run at Otto’s in Hamilton, Ohio.

DIXIE GOSPELAIRES          
Lillimae Whitaker’s band, based in Hardin County, Ohio, was called the Dixie Gospelaires.  The core of the original band was Lillimae on rhythm guitar and vocals, her husband Charlie Whitaker on mandolin, and Noah Hollon on banjo.  Over the years, other members have included Wayne Lewis, Tommy Boyd, Joe Isaacs, and Dwayne McCumbers.

DIXIE RYDERS 
In 2006, the Dixie Ryders have been playing bluegrass around the Dayton area for more than 30 years.  Leader Bob Hamblin has been singing lead and playing mandolin since the beginning.  Over the years, other long-time members have been Gene Bowlin, lead guitar player and sometime lead singer; Bill Howard, banjo (both three finger and clawhammer style); and Delbert Holt, rhythm guitar and comedy.  Other band members have been “Fiddling” Harold Staggs, Todd Elam, Alton Elam, Ellis Shockley, Roger Watts, Wilbur Carpenter, and Leo Howell.  They have recorded an LP on Old Homestead and two LPs on Central, a cassette on Central, and some self-produced tapes and CDs.  

DRY BRANCH FIRE SQUAD        
Along with the Hotmud Family, the Dry Branch Fire Squad was heavily involved with the rebirth of bluegrass music in the Dayton, Ohio, area during the 1970s.  Led by Ron Thomason, the band has survived into 2006 still issuing CDs, although Thomason has moved to Colorado.  The band still returns each year to the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton for its annual New Years’ show.  A lot of fine musicians have been members of Dry Branch over the years, including: Chris Montgomery, Johnny Baker, Robert Leach, John Hisey, John Carpenter, Mary Jo (Dickman) Leet, Charlie Leet, Suzanne (Edmundson) Thomas, Bill Evans, Dave Edmundson, Dick Erwin, Brian Aldridge, Tommy Boyd, and Dan Russell.  The band has had 13 LPs or CDs on Rounder, three on Rite, and one on Gordo.

EAGLE CAFÉ    
A Cincinnati bar that used hillbilly music in the 1940s-1950s era, the Eagle Cafe was where Joe “Cannonball” Lewis was playing when Fred Rose came to hear him and signed him to an MGM recording contract.

EDITH’S TAVERN                 
A bluegrass bar at 1432 East Fifth Street in Dayton, Ohio, Edith’s was where Paul “Moon” Mullins and the Valley Ramblers were appearing in the late 1960s.

ENGLE’S BAR  
The original Engle’s Bar was at 400 Cincinnati Street in Dayton.  It used a lot of country and bluegrass bands.  Red Spurlock played there in the 1950s.  In the late 1950s, Engle’s became the headquarters for Chuck Wiley, the self-proclaimed “King of Rock-n-Roll”.

EXCELLENT RECORDS     
Started in 1952 by Estel Lee (Scarborough), the Excellent label was active until the late 1950s.  Artists recording for Excellent included Dave Woolum and Noah Crase, Ray Lunsford, Harley Gabbard and Aubrey Holt (as the Logan Valley Boys and as the Logan and Laurel County Boys), Ralph Bowman, and Harlin and Stanley and the Wright Brothers.

FAMILY ROOM BAR 
The Family Room is the Dayton bar where the Allen Brothers played their first engagement as a band.

FLATT & SCRUGGS 
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1948 to form the third, and one of the most influential, groups in bluegrass history.  Before landing a steady early morning radio spot on Nashville’s WSM and a berth on the Grand Ole Opry, the band appeared on a number of southern radio stations and booked show dates primarily within their listening area.  The band’s earliest recording sessions were held in Cincinnati, presumably at Herzog Studios, during 1948 and 1949, for the Mercury label.  All of the 16 numbers recorded in Cincinnati have become classics, but “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was the biggest seller, primarily due to its use as the chase theme in the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde.”  The Flatt & Scruggs partnership ended in 1968, though both continued as leaders of their own groups.

FOGGY MOUNTAIN BOYS           
Flatt & Scruggs named their band the Foggy Mountain Boys after the Carter Family’s popular song, “Foggy Mountain Top.”        

FRANK’S TAVERN               
On Webster Street in the factory area in north Dayton, Frank’s featured a lot of bluegrass bands in the 1970s and 1980s.

FRIENDLY INN 
The Friendly Inn was at 408 West Third Street in downtown Dayton, one of several bars in the 400 block of West Third that featured bluegrass music in the 1950s.  It was owned at one time by William Greenblatt but was sold to Milton A. “Little Mickey” Friedman who eventually changed the name to Little Mickey’s.  The Osborne Brothers and Red Allen were playing at the Friendly Inn when they received word that they were going to be signed to an MGM Records contract.

GATEWAY RECORDS         
Gateway, one of Carl Burkhardt’s labels, issued many country and pop covers.  From a bluegrass standpoint, its 3000 series is important because it featured several records by Sonny Osborne including “A Brother in Korea” about his brother Bobby.  There were also some Guy Blakeman fiddle records as well as a single by Joe “Cannonball” Lewis.

GOLDEN FLY    
A bar located at 1907 North Main Street in Dayton, the Golden Fly was the scene of several of the early appearances of the Allen Brothers in 1973.  The establishment derived its name from its owner, Bernard “Benny” Goldflies.

GREENE COUNTY STUMP JUMPERS                    
The Greene County Stump Jumpers was a band made up of Antioch College students, including Alice Gerrard and Jeremy Foster.  Antioch is located in Yellow Springs, Greene County, Ohio.  Alice and Jeremy organized the first bluegrass concert on a college campus when they presented the Osborne Brothers at Antioch on March 5, 1960.  The Greene County Stump Jumpers opened that concert followed by the Plum Creek Boys from Oberlin College in Ohio, a band that included future bluegrass authority and historian Neil Rosenberg.

HAGAN BROTHERS 
Neither Hagans nor brothers, the Hagan Brothers were an early 1970s band that included Ken Williams on banjo, Mike Sugarman on guitar, Ron Murphy on bass, Greg Dearth on fiddle, and Peach Hampton on mandolin and fiddle.  They cut an LP on Kanawha in 1974.

HASPIN ACRES           
Located near Laurel, Indiana, 10 miles west of Brookville, Indiana on Indiana Route 121, Haspin Acres was the scene of several bluegrass festivals in the mid to late 1970s which featured most of the big names in bluegrass at the time.

HERZOG STUDIO                   
Herzog Studio was located at 811 Race Street in Cincinnati and was owned by E.T. “Bucky” Herzog, who had been an engineer at WLW.  He used his friendship with a lot of the local entertainers to get the studio going.  All of the records on the Radio Artist label were recorded at Herzog, including those made by the Turner Brothers and by Jimmie Skinner.  Hank Williams recorded his signature song “Lovesick Blues” at Herzog Studio, using WLW’s Pleasant Valley Boys (Jerry Byrd, Zeke Turner, Tommy Jackson, and Louie Innis) as his backup band.  Joe “Cannonball” Lewis did some of his MGM sessions at Herzog.  Flatt & Scruggs’ Cincinnati sessions, including “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” were also presumably recorded at Herzog Studio.

HILLTOP INN/TAVERN        
The Hilltop was a roadhouse bar located between Franklin and Middletown, Ohio, that used country and bluegrass music in the 1950s and beyond.
Noah Crase played there early in his career.

HORSESHOE BAR               
The Horseshoe was a club in Middletown, Ohio, where, in the 1960s, Paul “Moon” Mullins had a band and occasionally booked in name bluegrass bands.

HOTMUD FAMILY     
They were a traditional band, sometimes bluegrass, sometimes old-time country, and sometimes ragtime.  They were present and influential in the rebirth of bluegrass music in the Dayton area during the 1970s and into the early 1980s.  They were the first band to play at Sam’s Bar and Grill on West Fifth Street, opening the way for other local bluegrass bands. They were instrumental in bringing bluegrass to the Dayton Living Arts Center and hosted the “WYSO Country Jamboree” which was broadcast from there.  The nucleus of the band was Dave Edmundson on fiddle and mandolin, Suzanne (then Edmundson) Thomas on guitar and Rick Good on banjo.  Michael Hitchcock, Tom Harley Campbell, Jerry Ray Weinert, T.J. Lundy, Gary Hopkins, and Tom McCreesh were members at various times.  The band became nationally known and played the festival circuit as well as recording four LPs for Vetco and two for Flying Fish.