Rudy Lyle (1930 to 1985) played banjo in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys from mid-1949 to August 1951, then again in 1953 and 1954. He recorded 31 songs with Monroe, among them White House Blues, Rawhide, and Uncle Pen. Monroe called his playing powerful. He is the banjo on the early 1950s Monroe records that many pickers rank second only to the band with Flatt and Scruggs.
Why Lyle matters
Lyle followed Earl Scruggs and Don Reno in Monroe’s band, and he held his own. His breaks are hard-driving, inventive, and full of surprises. Bill Emerson said that next to Scruggs, Lyle was the one for him. Alan Munde called him a live wire. For a picker, his Monroe recordings are a master class in how to push a band without crowding the singer.
Life and career
Lyle was born on March 17, 1930, in Franklin County, Virginia, and grew up near Rocky Mount. His grandfather, Lomax Blankenship, fiddled for local dances. Lyle started banjo around age nine with Lawrence Wright and Paul Jefferson. As a teenager he joined Uncle Joe Johnson’s band on WPAQ in Mount Airy, North Carolina.
Monroe came to Mount Airy in the summer of 1949 and needed a banjo player. He hired Lyle three weeks later. Lyle’s first show with the Blue Grass Boys was the RC Cola Show at the Ryman, in a band with Mac Wiseman and Chubby Wise. Over the next two years he saw Red Taylor and then Vassar Clements take the fiddle chair. He entered the Army on August 3, 1951, and served in Korea. He came back to Monroe in 1953 and left in 1954.
After Monroe he played in the Shenandoah Trio with Joel Price and Red Taylor. In the mid-1950s he worked package shows and sessions in the Washington, D.C. area with Jimmy Dean, Patsy Cline, Claude King, and Roy Clark. Later he worked with Cas Walker in Knoxville and with Red Rector. He wrote more than 100 songs, including Brown Eyes Crying Over Blue. He was a private pilot who flew planes he built. He died on February 11, 1985, at 54.
Playing style
Lyle played Scruggs-based three-finger banjo with a sharp attack and a lot of drive. His breaks change from chorus to chorus, and he liked to throw in a lick no one saw coming. With Monroe he played a Gibson RB-3 Mastertone with wreath inlays that he bought near Mount Airy around 1950. He traded it in the 1960s.
Influences and legacy
Lyle learned from Lawrence Wright and Paul Jefferson in Virginia. In Monroe’s band he played beside Mac Wiseman, Jimmy Martin, Chubby Wise, and Vassar Clements. Sonny Osborne followed him in the band in 1952. Banjo player Max Wareham wrote Rudy Lyle: The Unsung Hero of the Five-String Banjo, with an introduction by Tony Trischka, and tabbed out every break Lyle recorded with Monroe.
Signature tunes and songs
White House Blues Rawhide On and On Sugar Coated Love Uncle Pen, with Bill Monroe (1950).
Essential recordings
Blue Grass Stomp, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys (Columbia, 1949) Uncle Pen, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys (Decca, 1950) Rawhide, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys (Decca, 1951)
Watch and listen
Max Wareham talks through Lyle’s life and plays his breaks on this episode of Deering Live.
What to learn from Lyle
Learn the banjo break on Monroe’s White House Blues. It is fast, it is bluesy, and it sits on top of the beat. The technique to steal is variety. Lyle changed his breaks from chorus to chorus. Take one tune and write three different breaks for it. That habit keeps your playing alive in a jam.
Sources
Rudy Lyle, Wikipedia Rudy Lyle, Classic Bluegrass Banjo Man, Bluegrass Unlimited Rudy Lyle discography, Discography of American Historical Recordings Rudy Lyle: The Unsung Hero of the Five-String Banjo, review, Bluegrass Unlimited
Related players
See the banjo players hub and the bluegrass banjo guide for more pickers. Lyle followed Earl Scruggs and Don Reno in Monroe’s band, and Sonny Osborne followed him.