Bailey Brothers
Bands / Ensembles
The Bailey Brothers were a country and early bluegrass duo of brothers Charlie Bailey (mandolin, guitar, vocals) and Danny Bailey (guitar, vocals), from Happy Valley, in Carter County, Tennessee, who performed with their backing band the Happy Valley Boys. They began singing together on Knoxville radio, including WNOX, around 1940. After Charlie joined the Army in 1941, Danny formed the Happy Valley Boys, and by 1944 the band was appearing on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Charlie rejoined in 1945, and the band became a full bluegrass group with fiddler L.E. White, banjo player Wiley Birchfield and bassist Jake Tullock. They recorded for Rich-R-Tone of Johnson City, Tennessee, starting in the late 1940s, then founded their own Canary label, and worked on radio at WPTF in Raleigh, North Carolina, and then from 1952 on the Wheeling Jamboree at WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia. Danny stayed in Knoxville after 1954 for health reasons and worked on the Farm and Home Hour radio and TV program until it was canceled in 1983. The brothers later reunited for two Rounder albums and two appearances at the Smithsonian's Festival of Folklife. Both died in 2004.
In the newsletter
- No. 6 Winter 1996