Curly Seckler (1919 to 2017) was a tenor singer and mandolin player from North Carolina. He sang above Lester Flatt in Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys from 1949 to 1962, recording more than 130 songs with them. He is on nearly all of their best-known records. After Flatt’s death in 1979, he led the Nashville Grass until 1994.
Why Seckler matters
Seckler shows what the mandolin does when it is not the star. In Flatt and Scruggs, the banjo and fiddle took most of the breaks. Seckler’s mandolin chopped the rhythm and filled under the singing, and his high tenor locked onto Flatt’s lead. That blend of steady chop and tight tenor is the sound of classic Flatt and Scruggs. Every mandolin player who sings harmony in a band is doing Seckler’s job.
Life and career
Seckler was born John Ray Sechler on December 25, 1919, in China Grove, North Carolina. His father played old-time fiddle, harmonica, and autoharp, and his mother taught him organ. He worked in a cotton mill with his brothers and learned banjo from a local player named Happy Trexler.
He played tenor banjo and sang harmony with his brothers in the Yodeling Rangers. In 1935 they landed a daily radio show in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1939 Charlie Monroe hired Curly as the first tenor singer in his Kentucky Pardners, at twenty dollars a week.
In 1949 he joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and switched to mandolin. He left for a few months in 1951, worked a short time with the Sauceman Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, and teamed with Jim and Jesse McReynolds. By the end of 1951 he was back with Flatt and Scruggs, and he stayed until 1962.
He stepped away from music until 1973, when Lester Flatt asked him to join the Nashville Grass. When Flatt died in 1979, Seckler took over the band and led it until he retired in 1994. His 2005 album Sixty Years of Bluegrass with My Friends came out on Copper Creek. He died in his sleep on December 27, 2017, two days after his 98th birthday.
Playing style
Seckler played rhythm first. His chop was crisp and steady, and he kept it going under Scruggs’s banjo and Paul Warren’s fiddle. When he took a break, he stated the melody in plain form with a strong right hand and little decoration.
His voice was the other half of his job. He sang a high, clear tenor that sat close above Flatt’s relaxed lead. The trio and quartet numbers on the Flatt and Scruggs Mercury and Columbia records show how a mandolin player can carry a vocal part and a rhythm part at the same time.
Influences and legacy
Seckler grew up on his parents’ old-time music and learned banjo from Happy Trexler. Charlie Monroe gave him his first big job. He spent his prime beside Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Benny Martin, and Paul Warren.
In the Nashville Grass he worked with a young Marty Stuart, who played mandolin and guitar in the band. Seckler also played with Jim and Jesse, Mac Wiseman, the Stanley Brothers, and Doyle Lawson.
Signature tunes and songs
Salty Dog Blues Traveling This Lonesome Road.
Essential recordings
Sixty Years of Bluegrass with My Friends (Copper Creek, 2005)
Awards and honors
International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame (2004) North Carolina Music Hall of Fame (2010)
Watch and listen
Seckler jams on Salty Dog Blues, a Flatt and Scruggs favorite. Listen to his chop and his tenor.
What to learn from Seckler
Learn the tenor part on Salty Dog Blues while you chop. Most mandolin players can do one or the other. Doing both is a real skill. Keep the chop on beats two and four, sing the harmony above the lead, and do not let either one drift. A mandolin player who can sing tenor and hold the rhythm will always find a band.
Sources
Curly Seckler, Wikipedia Curly Seckler oral history, NAMM
Related players
See the mandolin players hub and the mandolin guide. Seckler sang beside Lester Flatt for 13 years. Pee Wee Lambert held the same role with the Stanley Brothers. Marty Stuart learned beside him in the Nashville Grass.