The Kentucky Colonels

Who Were They?

The Kentucky Colonels were a Los Angeles bluegrass band of the 1960s built around the White brothers, mandolinist Roland White and guitarist Clarence White. They proved bluegrass could thrive far from the South, and they gave the music one of its most important instrumentalists ever.

Clarence White transformed bluegrass lead guitar. His syncopated, bluesy, endlessly inventive flatpicking on the 1964 album Appalachian Swing! is the fountainhead of modern bluegrass guitar, the direct model for Tony Rice and, through him, Billy Strings and everyone else. He later joined the Byrds and helped invent country-rock before his life was cut short.

The Story

Their story is brilliant and brief, a band that changed the music in a few short years before tragedy ended it.

1. late 1950s

   The Country Boys

   The White brothers, transplanted from Maine to California, started as a young family band called the Country Boys.

2. 1963

   The Kentucky Colonels

   Renamed, and with Clarence's guitar maturing fast, they became fixtures of the Los Angeles folk scene at clubs like the Ash Grove.

3. 1964

   Appalachian Swing!

   Their mostly instrumental album showcased Clarence's revolutionary flatpicking and became one of the most influential bluegrass records ever made.

4. 1965–67

   The folk boom fades

   As the folk boom cooled, the band wound down. Clarence turned to session work and began playing electric guitar.

5. 1968–73

   The Byrds and country-rock

   Clarence joined the Byrds, co-invented the string-bending B-Bender guitar, and helped pioneer country-rock.

6. 1973

   A life cut short

   Clarence White was killed by a drunk driver while loading gear after a show, at just twenty-nine. His influence has only grown since.

Start Here

These three are the fastest way to hear the band, and the guitar that changed everything.

The Essential Records 4 to start with

Four records covering the landmark studio sessions and the treasured live recordings.

The Playlists

A hand-picked Essentials set of Kentucky Colonels favorites, the way in for anyone new. Hit the button to open it in YouTube Music.

The Guitar

Before Clarence White, the guitar in bluegrass was mostly a rhythm instrument. Doc Watson had shown it could play lead, flatpicking fiddle tunes cleanly and fast, but Clarence took it somewhere new. His playing was syncopated and bluesy, full of surprising accents, bent notes, and rhythmic hesitations that made the guitar sound like it was talking. He used crosspicking and a loose, swinging sense of time that no one had brought to bluegrass guitar before, and it changed the instrument permanently.

Appalachian Swing! is where it all comes together, an almost entirely instrumental album that guitarists have studied like scripture ever since. Tony Rice, who eventually owned Clarence's very guitar, built his own revolutionary style directly on what Clarence started, and the line runs straight from there to every flatpicker playing today. It is no exaggeration to say modern bluegrass lead guitar begins with Clarence White.

His restless curiosity also made him a pioneer beyond bluegrass. In the Byrds he played electric, co-invented the Parsons-White String Bender that let a guitar mimic a pedal steel, and helped create country-rock. That he did all of this and was gone at twenty-nine, killed by a drunk driver in 1973, is one of the great what-ifs in American music. The Kentucky Colonels were brief, but through Clarence they are everywhere.

Influences

The Colonels came out of bluegrass and old-time, with Clarence reaching into the blues and jazz. These are the sources.

In Their Own Words

Filmed footage of Clarence White is precious. These rare clips catch him demonstrating his guitar, and his brother Roland telling the band's story.

Going Deeper

The Kentucky Colonels lead directly into the modern flatpicking tradition they helped create.

• Tony Rice: who built on Clarence's style and later played his very guitar. See the guide.
• Doc Watson: the flatpicking forefather who opened the door. See the guide.
• Billy Strings: the modern heir to this whole guitar lineage. See the guide.
• Bill Monroe: the bedrock the band grew from. See the guide.
• The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo era and Clarence's String Bender work: the country-rock side of his genius.

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