Webb and Collins keeping traditional Smoky Mountain music alive

Return to Renaissance Center for Aug. 12 concert

Release Date: 7/28/2005. Expired: 8/12/2005

The music of the Smoky Mountains and rural America returns to The Renaissance Center when Mike Webb and Charlie Collins bring their music and comedy show back to Dickson Aug. 12.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. show in the Performance Hall are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $6 for children under 13.

Collins, a long-time guitarist in Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys, and Webb, a banjo player and dobro protégé of Acuff sideman Bashful Brother Oswald, keep alive the traditional country sounds that came down from the mountains and spread coast to coast over the airwaves through broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry.

Collins played in Acuff’s band for more than 30 years and when the “King of Country Music” retired, Collins and Oswald continued touring and playing. Collins is an accomplished musician, playing guitar, mandolin and fiddle, who still performs regularly on the Opry.

Webb began playing guitar at the age of 16 and began touring in 1991 as part of a American Music Tour, opening shows for Marty Stuart, Ronnie McDowell, Doug Stone and T. Graham Brown. Webb joined Wilma Lee Cooper’s Clinch Mountain Clan and began regularly playing on the Grand Ole Opry. He became enchanted with the resonator guitar, commonly called a dobro, one night after hearing Oswald playing in Acuff’s dressing room backstage at the Opry.

Webb bought a dobro and taught himself to play Oswald’s The End of the World, then returned to the Opry and played it for Oswald. The musician was impressed and took Webb under his wing, teaching him the old-time mountain style of playing the dobro and banjo. Despite a 30-year difference in age, the two became best friends and Webb again played The End of the World one last time for Oswald at his 2002 funeral.

When Oswald’s health was failing, Webb and Collins teamed up to continue the act that Oswald and Collins had carried on when Acuff died in 1992.

“I promised Os that I would keep the music going for him, that it wouldn’t be lost to the ages,” Webb says. “He was a true friend and a great ambassador for old-time mountain music.”

Following Oswald’s death, his widow passed on his instruments and comedy props, including Oswald’s signature size 44 shoes, to Webb in order to keep the traditions alive.

Webb also has worked with Mac Wiseman, Jim and Jesse and Charlie Louvin, who recently recorded a duet for Webb’s latest CD, Smoky Mountain Memories.

“Playing this music is refreshing to the soul and a pure labor of love,” says Webb.

Webb is a collector of Grand Ole Opry memorabilia and his collection is on display at the family music store, Webb’s Music and Museum, in Hohenwald, Tenn. Included in the exhibits are Teddy and Doyle Wilburns’ Nudie suits from the 1950s, many of Oswald’s personal belongings and many rare photos of other legends of country music.

For more information on Collins and Webb’s Aug. 12 concert at The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5600. To purchase tickets, call (615)740-5570.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit www.mikeandcharlie.com.

Visit the Events - Concerts and Recitals page for more about musical performances.

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