Betty Fisher and the Dixie Bluegrass Band
Bands / Ensembles
Betty Fisher and the Dixie Bluegrass Band (sometimes billed as “boys”) was an bluegrass band of the 1970s led by singer and guitarist Betty Fisher. Fisher, born Betty Buchanan in Avery County, North Carolina, in 1935, had performed and co-written a song with Jimmie Skinner before stopping in 1955, when she married Jesse Thomas "J.T." Fisher Jr. She returned to performing about 17 years later with J.T. Fisher managing and booking the band. The 1974 album Leaving Town lists Fisher on guitar and vocals, Tommy Jackson on banjo, Murphy Hicks on bass, George Gillis on fiddle and Richard Hollis on resonator guitar. A television special by the band aired on WGTV, the Athens and Atlanta public station, and was well enough received that the station asked for a second one. In 1991, banjo player David Deese helped reorganize the group as Betty Fisher-David Deese and Dixie Bluegrass, with Larry Plyler, Glenn Brown and Ralph Keller. That group recorded the albums Branching Out and I'm Just a Stranger Here. Betty Fisher died on July 7, 2012.