The Boy From Bluegrass - Lizzie Lou

Mandolinist Casey Conners, who performs and records as The Boy From Bluegrass, stumbled upon "Lizzie Lou" during a deep dive into the Osborne Brothers catalog on their Country Bluegrass album. "I was listening to this song on a daily basis right up until I decided to record The Boy From Bluegrass album. I realized this would be a great one to cut because it was unique to their repertoire and from what I gather almost never performed live.

"Recording this song was tremendous fun, a big contributor being that the amazing Murphy Henry directed the arrangement. With her expertise we crafted this cut together, as the group of musicians had either not played or heard it before. Her exemplary banjo technique is a major reason this song sounds so good. We did our best to stay as close to the Osborne Brothers recording as possible."

The crack musicians collected for the recording consisted of Conners on mandolin, Jerry McCoury playing bass, Jason Carter on fiddle, Chris Henry on guitar, and Murphy Henry playing the five-string. "'Lizzie Lou' features your classic bluegrass and country music topics, that’s for sure," Conners notes. "Lost love, feeling down and out, and blue, hoping that enough new love and drinking will get you on the other side of it. No matter how seldom that works. The song was written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, a husband-and-wife songwriting super group who many accolades for their art and wrote many of Sonny and Bobby's biggest songs."

Conners really is The Boy From Bluegrass, Blue Grass, Virginia, that is, a mountain town in northwestern Virginia, close to the West Virginia line. "When I was about 16-17 years old, I couldn’t stand it anymore and realized I just had to be a mandolin player. The bluegrass Mandolin of Bill Monroe and Ronnie McCoury just had me in a fit every day. Ever since then I have made some milestones in my mandolin playing by incessantly studying the nuances of my heroes' music. Today I am proud to reference Ronnie McCoury as a close personal friend and mentor. He introduced me to this music and to the Great Herschel Sizemore who was also influential in my journey as a mandolin player, and I am so proud to play his personal Red Diamond every day. I also give thanks to David McLaughlin as I spent almost two years in the hot seat of his lesson room. It was at his historic Nancy Shepherd House Inn that I really learned this music and how to be a bluegrass mandolin player."