Bluegrass great Bobby Osborne passes away at 91

Osborne, who played mandolin, and his brother Sonny may have best known for their song "Rocky Top," which eventually became the state song of Tennessee. Bobby Osborne was a member of the Grand Ole Opry and International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

Bobby Van Osborne was born on Dec. 7, 1931 in Thousandsticks in Leslie County, Ky. As a youth, he helped out at his grandfather's general store. He dropped out of high school to form a band with Sonny.

Osborne was drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps in 1951 and served in the Korean War. He was wounded in action and received the Purple Heart.

He listened to the Grand Ole Opry one night on WSM radio, enjoying the banjo playing of Earl Scruggs on "Cumberland Gap." That, of course, turned him onto bluegrass. He later took up mandolin at the behest of Ernest Tubb.

The Osbornes were known for stretching the boundaries of bluegrass with the use of drums and electric guitar.

"When my brother and me started recording, we didn't want to be exactly like anybody else," Bobby said in a 2004 interview with Country Standard Time. "We ran into a song back in the '50s, 'Once More,'...and we always liked the steel guitar, I always thought the steel guitar was a beautiful instrument. So, I don't know, we was just riding along in the car one time, and all of a sudden I just started singing 'Once More'."

"We'd always featured just regular harmony, like the regular style of bluegrass - the tenor, the high tenor part on top, you know, but somehow or another I just started singing that song way up in the high range, and Sonny and Red Allen, who was with us at the time, they just came in and did the two lower parts under that, and we'd never heard anything like that before, we just lucked into it. So we got to listening to it and thinking about that steel guitar and the harmonies that the guys have with the pedal steel, and the same harmony is what they use on the steel guitar. It was beautiful, so we just kept working with that until we perfected that style of singing that made us different from anybody, you know."

The Osbornes were active until Sonny retired in 2004 following shoulder surgery. He passed away in 2021.

"I think he just kind of got burned out, you know, and he wanted to retire from everything altogether, So, he and I just had a discussion, and I told him I'd like to go on, and he said, 'Well, be my guest and go on because I think I'll just give it up.' So, at that point there, which I think is just about four months ago, he quit the Opry and quit the road, just completely retired, and I've been on my own ever since."

Bobby Osborne continued with his solo career. Among his albums were "Bluegrass & Beyond"" in 2009 and "ORIGINAL" in 2017 .

Osborne continued to perform with his band, the Rocky Top X-Press, until his death.

Osborne was inducted to Grand Ole Opry in 1964 as a member of the Osborne Brothers). The Osborne were named Vocal Group of the Year by Country Music Association in 1971. The Osbornes joined the IBMA Hall of Honor in 1994.