During this 2019 program, Nashville session musician Curtis McPeake and folk singer-songwriter Andy May share stories and perform old-time and bluegrass tunes including “Leather Britches” and “Sweet Sunny South,” as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Musician Spotlight series.

Banjo player Curtis McPeake worked with Danny Davis, Lester Flatt, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, and Bill Monroe over the course of his seventy-year career. As a Nashville session musician, he appeared on hundreds of recordings and was a member of the Grand Ole Opry staff band for eight years.

Andy May—a guitarist, mandolin player, singer, songwriter, producer, and music educator—has performed with Merle Haggard, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Nickel Creek, Mike Seeger, and Pete Seeger.

In 2018, McPeake and May released “The Good Things (Outweigh the Bad),” an album of bluegrass and old-time standards. Here, McPeake and May are joined by Aubrey Haynie on the fiddle and Tim Dishman on the upright bass, and together, they perform songs featured on “Good Things,” including “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains,” “Salley Garden” and “Steel Drivin’ Man.”

May also fields questions from the audience, prompting McPeake to share some of his stories. He talks about growing up in a small town in west Tennessee, first coming to Nashville to work with Earl Scruggs, and finally moving to town to pursue a career as a full-time musician. McPeake and May also discuss how McPeake played the steel guitar before discovering he preferred the banjo.

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