Front Porch String Band
Bands / Ensembles
The Front Porch String Band was a bluegrass band from Alabama built around singer Claire Lynch and her then husband, multi-instrumentalist Larry Lynch. It began as Hickory Wind, a band Larry formed with fellow students at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, with Claire joining in the early 1970s. The members renamed it after learning that an old-time band in Washington, D.C., was already called Hickory Wind. Alan O'Bryant, later of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, was an early member. The Lynches disbanded the group in the early 1980s to raise a family in northern Alabama and re-formed it in 1990. The 1990s lineup included Michael McLain on banjo and mandolin, Missy Raines on bass and Jim Hurst on guitar, who joined in 1995. Claire Lynch transitioned the name to the Claire Lynch Band in 2005.