The Osborne Brothers have gone back to basics.
During the course of a 50-year career, the veteran bluegrass act played with symphony orchestras, used amplified instruments and even broke with bluegrass tradition for nearly a decade by using a drummer.
But when Sonny and Bobby Osborne come to Woodstock Opera House on Saturday, they’ll be playing traditional bluegrass the old-fashioned way-backed by an all acoustic lineup of dobro, string bass and guitar.
“It just got to the point where we had accomplished just about all we could” in the country-pop vein, says banjo player/baritone singer Sonny Osborne.
“I got really tired of having to beg deejays to play bluegrass. So we decided we’re not going to play the game anymore. We decided, let’s just go back and play the old stuff we know.”
The Osborne brothers grew up in Kentucky listening to nothing but bluegrass music. “Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra: I had no idea they even existed,” recalls Sonny. Encouraged by his father, an amateur musician who played square dances in one-room schools, Sonny first picked up the banjo when he was 11.
Three years later, the precocious 14-year-old found himself playing in the band of legendary mandolinist Bill Monroe. It was a trial by fire that Osborne, 55, still has mixed feelings about.
“Monroe was very hard to work for,” he says. “With him, everything-music, your handshake-was a contest to see how strong you are. The first time at the Grand Ole Opry, he picked the hardest song he could find, `Rawhide,’ and stood right in back of me playing his mandolin. My knees were literally shaking I was so nervous.
“You talk about pushing! Maybe it made me the player I am today, but at the time, I hated him for it. The old man pushed, and I’m just glad I hung on.”
Sonny left Monroe’s band to form the Osborne Brothers in 1953, and the duo’s distinct harmony style, which features Bobby’s high tenor lead, gradually made them one of top bands in country music. They became a regular on the Grand Ole Opry in 1963, and in 1967 recorded their best known song, “Rocky Top.”
Sonny says the famous barn-burner was originally conceived as a slow tempo ballad.
“We were about to record a new album, and (songwriter) Boudleaux Bryant lived down the road from us. So I went over and asked him if he had anything for us, and he said, `Just this half finished thing,’ which he played for me. It was at a slow tempo, and I said, `If we double the tempo and you can finish it by tomorrow morning, we’ll use it.’ He did, and we cut it. `Rocky Top’ was released on Christmas Day 25 years ago, and I have never in my life seen such a response to a bluegrass record.”
“Rocky Top” led to a 15-year hot streak, including a 1971 Country Music Award for Best Vocal Group, and a number of Top 20 country hits. But by the early ’80s, Sonny Osbourne says, the music industry had changed.
“It’s an entirely different world now. The record companies want to mix up rock and country, rhythm and blues and country, so there’s just one sound,” he says.
And it’s not just the crossovers that puzzles Osborne; he also is baffled by the rough-hewn image fostered by some artists.
“It used to be on the Grand Ole Opry, Ernest Tubb and his band all dressed alike, all neat and clean,” Sonny says. “Now, it’s more like how bad can you look. . . . From my time, if you had holes in my jeans, it meant you were cold. I fail to understand it.”
One thing he does understand is longevity. The key to the Osborne Brothers’ enduring popularity, he says, is consistency. “We used to have the lead voice in the middle, and that was always the guitar player’s, and the guitar players kept changing.”
“So we decided to put Bobby’s voice on top and have the harmonies underneath. We could try everything else, the symphony, the electric instrments, but as long as we maintained Bobby’s voice, and never put down the mandolin and banjo, then we’d have something we could call our own.”
The Osborne Brothers will perform traditional repertoire, including songs from their latest album, “Hillbilly Fever,” which was nominated for two Grammy Awards last year, at 8 p.m. Saturday at Woodstock Opera House, 121 Van Buren St., Woodstock. Tickets are $14. Call 815-338- 5300.
