Saturday performances at the 1998 Florida Folk Festival (Main Stage) (Tape 8)

General Note/Comment

• One digital audio tape (DAT). Jim and Jesse were brothers from Virginia who began performing as a bluegrass-country music duo in 1945. Later they formed the Virginia Boys to back them up. Florida fiddler Vassar Clements was once a member. In the late 1950s, they played the Suwannee River Jamboree in Live Oak, a weekly country music show broadcast live on WNER. In 1959, Martha White flour became their sponsor (as they were for Flatt and Scruggs), and in 1964 became members of the Grand Old Opry. The band consisted of Jim (guitar/vocals), Jesse (mandolin/vocals), Luke McNight (mandolin; grandson of Jesse), Tom Ewing (bass), Jim Britton (banjo), and Gordon Reed (fiddle).