EWING, THOMAS DOLLISON RALSTON “TOM” (1946-)

Tom Ewing was born in Columbus to a father who had aspirations of being a mainstream pop singer and who encouraged Tom when he began to show an interest in music, first folk and then bluegrass. After high school, Tom played guitar and sang in the country bars around Columbus before landing a job with Earl Taylor’s Stoney Mountain Boys in Cincinnati in 1973 and working as a deejay on WOSU’s Bluegrass Ramble. A great fan of Bill Monroe, he got his chance to work as Bill’s lead singer and guitar player from 1986 to 1996. After Monroe’s death, he began writing “30 Years Ago This Month” for Bluegrass Unlimited and in 2000 edited The Bill Monroe Reader for the University of Illinois Press. In 2016, he is working on a biography of Bill Monroe.