J.D. Crowe and the New South
Bands / Ensembles
J.D. Crowe and the New South was a bluegrass band from Kentucky, led by banjo player J.D. Crowe. It grew out of Crowe's Kentucky Mountain Boys, formed around 1964, whose members included Red Allen, Larry Rice, Bobby Slone and Doyle Lawson and who recorded three albums for Lemco. Lawson left in 1971 to join the Country Gentlemen and was replaced by Larry Rice's younger brother, guitarist Tony Rice. The band's first album as the New South, Bluegrass Evolution, recorded in 1973, added drums, pedal steel and electric instruments. For its 1975 Rounder album, J.D. Crowe & the New South, known by its catalog number "Rounder 0044," Ricky Skaggs replaced Larry Rice and Dobro player Jerry Douglas joined. The album paired traditional bluegrass instruments with songs by writers such as Gordon Lightfoot, Utah Phillips and Rodney Crowell, and in 2024 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry. Rice soon left for David Grisman's band and Skaggs and Douglas formed Boone Creek. Crowe then hired guitarist and singer Keith Whitley, mandolinist Jimmy Gaudreau and bassist Steve Bryant, and that lineup recorded several albums with a more country-influenced sound. In 2002 the whole band quit to form Wildfire, and Crowe re-formed the New South with returning members Dwight McCall and Rickey Wasson. Crowe died in December 2021 at age 84.