Bill Napier (1935 to 2000) joined the Stanley Brothers on mandolin in 1957 and switched to lead guitar before he left in 1960. He wrote Daybreak in Dixie, the flatpicking tune that put acoustic lead guitar on a Stanley Brothers record for the first time. From 1962 to 1967 he and singer Charlie Moore cut nine albums for King Records.
Why Napier matters
The Stanley Brothers had a banjo, a fiddle, and a mandolin to play the breaks. Napier gave them a fourth voice. His guitar lead on Daybreak in Dixie came before Doc Watson’s first Vanguard record and before the Kentucky Colonels’ Appalachian Swing. Any picker who plays a guitar break in a Stanley Brothers song owes him a debt.
Life and career
Napier was born on December 17, 1935, near Grundy, Virginia. He joined the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1957 as a mandolin player. A recording from Unity Hall in Dundalk, Maryland, on July 6, 1957, catches him singing lead on Drink Up and Go Home and trading breaks with Ralph Stanley on Rawhide.
He moved from mandolin to lead guitar while still with the band. He played lead guitar on the early King and Starday sessions and wrote Daybreak in Dixie. He left the Stanleys in 1960.
Napier then teamed with South Carolina singer Charlie Moore. As Charlie Moore and Bill Napier with the Dixie Partners, they recorded their first King album in December 1962. Over the next five years they cut nine albums and about 108 songs for King. Their best known record was Truck Driver’s Queen. The pair split in 1967.
By 1970 Napier had settled near Detroit and cut back on music. He met singer Larry Taylor at a festival in Nashville, Michigan, in 1980, and the two recorded together for Old Homestead Records. Napier made his only solo album, with a band called the Mountain Music Clan, for Old Homestead in 1984. He played on a 1986 Stanley Brothers tribute recording and cut a new version of Daybreak in Dixie for it. He was still performing when he died on May 3, 2000, in Gray, Tennessee.
Playing style
Napier came to the guitar from the mandolin, and his lead work shows it. His breaks follow the melody the way a mandolin player would, with clean single notes and a flatpick. Daybreak in Dixie is the model: a fast tune built on melody lines that fit under the fingers, with open strings mixed into the runs. He also played banjo, and banjo players have taken up the tune as well.
Influences and legacy
Napier learned the trade with Carter Stanley and Ralph Stanley. He worked in the same band as George Shuffler, who later took over lead guitar for the Stanleys. When the band re-recorded Daybreak in Dixie in July 1960, Curley Lambert played the lead part, but the tune stayed Napier’s.
Daybreak in Dixie outlived him. It became a standard for flatpickers and banjo players.
Signature tunes and songs
Daybreak in Dixie Truck Driver’s Queen.
Essential recordings
Bill Napier and His Mountain Music Clan (Old Homestead, 1984)
Watch and listen
This upload pairs the original Stanley Brothers recording of Daybreak in Dixie with the 1960 overdubbed single. Listen for the guitar lead on the first version.
What to learn from Napier
Learn Daybreak in Dixie. It is one of the few flatpicking standards written by a bluegrass guitarist rather than borrowed from the fiddle. It teaches you to mix open strings with fretted notes at speed. The technique to steal is his mandolin-style approach to a break: play the melody straight, keep every note clean, and save the fancy runs for the turnaround.
Sources
Bill Napier, AllMusic Bill Napier, Praguefrank’s Country Discography We Salute the Stanley Brothers, Clinch Mountain Echo Finger Poppin’ Time / Daybreak in Dixie, Clinch Mountain Echo The Stanley Brothers 1957 vintage at Valley View Park, Bluegrass Today Moore, Charles Benjamin, South Carolina Encyclopedia Moore and Napier head for home with Truck Driver’s Queen, The Trucker
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Napier played beside Carter Stanley and George Shuffler. Doc Watson and Clarence White took lead guitar further in the years after Daybreak in Dixie.