Passing of Bluegrass Music Legend, Bobby Hicks

NC Music Hall of Fame Inductee Passes at Age 91

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Bobby Hicks, renowned Bluegrass and Country music fiddle player known for playing fiddle with Bill Monroe, Tony Rice and Ricky Skaggs, has passed away at the age of 91. Bobby Hicks is to be inducted into the NC Music Hall of Fame at its annual induction ceremony October 17th. The Hall of Fame is disheartened to hear this only two months before his induction.

Bobby Hicks was born on July 21st of 1933, and spent the first twelve years of his life in Newton, North Carolina. Surrounded by a family where both his mother and two of his brothers played various instruments, Hicks gravitated to music at an early age.

In 1945, the Hicks family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. Bobby continued to hone his talents on the fiddle in Reidsville, North Carolina. Shortly after the move, he entered a fiddlers’ convention at the Greensboro fairgrounds. In an event billed as the North Carolina State Championship, Bobby placed first by performing “Orange Blossom Special” and “Black Mountain Rag.” His prize was a $50 war bond which he never received.

By 1953, Bobby found himself in Danville, Virginia, with his first professional job as a musician, alongside Jim Eanes. It was while working with Eanes, that Hicks made his first trips to a recording studio. The first of these sessions for Decca Records was augmented by the talents of a young guitarist named Chet Atkins.

By the time that Hicks finally got to record with Monroe several months later, he had moved from bass to his preferred fiddle. Monroe would later describe Hicks as “the truest fiddler” he had ever heard, and featured Hicks on several instrumentals.

Hicks stayed with Monroe until September of 1956, when he began a two-year enlistment with the US military. Hicks then returned to the Blue Grass Boys in 1958, and played with the group for another year.

In 1980, Hicks became part of the bluegrass supergroup, the Bluegrass Album Band. The following year, he was hired by Ricky Skaggs, a bluegrass prodigy that was just beginning to emerge as a country music star. Bobby would spend the next twenty-two years with Skaggs, appearing on numerous hit records, and accompanying Skaggs’ much heralded return to bluegrass in the mid 1990s.

In 1997, Hicks released the album, Fiddle Patch. The album was later named Instrumental Album of the Year in 1998, by members of the International Bluegrass Music Association. Hicks was inducted into the Fiddlers Hall of Fame in 2002, and the Bluegrass Music Hall Of Fame in 2017.

Hicks has received ten Grammy nominations, and has won three times. 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry