Born a “Sechler” in China Grove, North Carolina, Curly Seckler changed to a more phonetic spelling as he became a prominent tenor vocalist and mandolin player in the early days of pre-bluegrass and bluegrass music. Seckler recorded with Charlie Monroe’s Kentucky Pardners before his most-famous pairing, with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, with whom he appeared off and on until Lester’s death in 1979. Thirty years earlier, he participated in classic recordings with Flatt and Scruggs in Cincinnati for the Mercury label. After Lester Flatt’s death, Curly took over leadership of the Nashville Grass until his retirement in 1994. Seckler also toured with Mac Wiseman and with Jim and Jesse in the early 1950s, an era in which they were visible figures in the Cincinnati/Dayton bluegrass scene. In 2004, Curly Seckler was inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame. In 2016, his biography Foggy Mountain Troubadour, by Penny Parsons was published by the University of Illinois Press.
SECKLER, JOHN RAY "CURLY" (1919-)