Phil Leadbetter (1962 to 2021) was a Dobro player from Knoxville, Tennessee. He played with J.D. Crowe and the New South and helped start the bands Wildfire, Grasstowne, and Flashback. He won the IBMA’s Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year award three times. His album Slide Effects won Instrumental Album of the Year in 2005.
Why Leadbetter matters
Leadbetter spent three decades as a working band member in bluegrass. He played Dobro for J.D. Crowe, the Whites, and Dale Ann Bradley, and he co-founded three bands of his own. He won his three IBMA awards across 14 years. The last came in 2019, eight years after his cancer diagnosis.
Life and career
Leadbetter was born in Knoxville in 1962. In the late 1980s he worked with Grandpa Jones and then with Vern Gosdin. In the early 1990s he joined J.D. Crowe and the New South. He released his first solo album, Philibuster, on Rounder in 1999.
He was a founding member of Wildfire, a band formed with other New South members. Later he helped start Grasstowne with Steve Gulley and mandolinist Alan Bibey. In 2005 he released Slide Effects on Pinecastle and won his first IBMA Dobro award. In 2010 he joined the Whites.
In 2011 he learned he had Hodgkin lymphoma. He took about two years off the road. He came back in 2013 with the Dale Ann Bradley band and released The Next Move in 2014. In 2016 he left Bradley’s band and formed Flashback. He then led Phil Leadbetter and the All-Stars of Bluegrass, which made Swing for the Fences for Pinecastle. He won his third IBMA award in 2019. He died in 2021.
Playing style
Gibson built a Phil Leadbetter Signature Dobro. Much of his work was backing singers, such as Dale Ann Bradley and the Whites.
Influences and legacy
Leadbetter played with J.D. Crowe for about a decade, and Jerry Douglas had held the same Dobro chair in the New South years before. In Grasstowne he worked beside Alan Bibey, who also played on The Next Move.
Essential recordings
Philibuster (Rounder, 1999) Slide Effects (Pinecastle, 2005) The Next Move (Pinecastle, 2014) Swing for the Fences, Phil Leadbetter and the All-Stars of Bluegrass (Pinecastle)
Awards and honors
IBMA Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year (2005, 2014, 2019) IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year, Slide Effects (2005) Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame (2015)
Watch and listen
Leadbetter plays Last Thing on My Mind in a Dobro master class.
What to learn from Leadbetter
Leadbetter spent most of his career as a band member, not a soloist. Learn to back a singer. Play a short fill in the gaps between lines, then get out of the way when the voice comes back. Practice this on a song with space in it, such as Last Thing on My Mind.
Sources
Phil Leadbetter, Wikipedia Leadbetter, Phil, BluegrassBios.com Awards by Category, IBMA Alan Bibey, Wikipedia J.D. Crowe, Wikipedia
Related players
See the Dobro players hub and the Dobro guide. Rob Ickes and Jerry Douglas won the same IBMA award in the years around Leadbetter’s wins. Brother Oswald was an earlier Tennessee Dobro player.