James Dee Crowe, popularly known as J.D. Crowe, has been playing banjo and bluegrass music for over 45 years. He grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, where he still lives, and began learning the Earl Scruggs style of banjo picking at age 13.

While still a teenager, he became the banjo player for Jimmy Martin and Sunny Mountain Boys in the mid-1950’s and Jimmy taught him to sing the baritone line in trios as well. He is heard on more than 45 of Martin’s recordings, many of them bluegrass classics (“You Don’t Know My Mind,” “Ocean of Diamonds,” “Rock Hearts,”) He became a master of hard driving, straightforward banjo playing and has become somewhat of a legend in the bluegrass world.

As a second generation bluegrass instrumentalist, he formed The Kentucky Mountain Boys in the sixties to play a steady gig at the Holiday Inn in Lexington. Early members of the band included Doyle Lawson, Larry Rice, Bobby Sloan, and Red Allen. As his band sound developed into a more contemporary style, it became the breeding ground for many of today’s bluegrass musical leaders, including Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and Ricky Skaggs. In 1971 he changed the band name to J.D. Crowe and the New South which featured flawless picking and close harmony singing. The New South’s releases on Rounder Records are still in print and are recognized as some of the most important recordings in bluegrass today.

J. D. also ventured into what was considered modern country sounds in the mid-seventies and when Keith Whitley joined the group he performed numbers normally associated with such artists as Merle Haggard, Gordon Lightfoot, and Lefty Frizzell.

But traditional bluegrass was a strong bond for J.D. and in the eighties he came back to his roots as a founding member of the Bluegrass Album Band with Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, Bobby Hicks, and Jerry Douglas recording some of the mostly highly regarded bluegrass classics of Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs and the Osborne Brothers. Although not a performing band as such, this group’s recordings had such energy that it brought about an increase in the popularity of the traditional style within the bluegrass community.

J. D. continues to perform with the current edition of the New South, consisting of Dwight McCall on mandolin and tenor vocals, Ricky Wasson on guitar and lead vocals, Harold Nixon on bass, and Ron Steward on fiddle. J. D.’s banjo playing continues in the path of Earl Scruggs and J. D. is considered by many to be the dean of Scruggs playing today. His accomplishments were recognized in October 2003 with his induction into the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Hall of Honor with notation of his straightforward five-string banjo style with a penchant for impeccable timing.

J. D. and the New South performed at the end of February 2004 at Arlington, Virginia’s Spectrum Theater in a concert sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Division of Arlington County. During this concert, J. D. had time to talk about his career with concert emcee, and our occasional Bluegrass Overnight host, Bob Webster. Listen to the interview and enjoy some of the songs associated with J. D. over the years.