Tennessee Mafia Jug Band Featuring Leroy Troy

“Lonesome” Lester Armistead and his late brother Jack performed extensively in Tennessee’s Davidson County environs as a country duet years ago. They grew up around Roy Acuff‘s Smoky Mt. Boys, as their father co-owned a bait store with Acuff’s fiddler Howdy Forrester. Armistead earned to sing from his brother Oswald and now blows a jug that Os played on the Opry as long ago as 1939. Lester also picks a mean banjo.

“Lonesome” Lester Armistead and his late brother Jack performed extensively in Tennessee’s Davidson County environs as a country duet years ago. They grew up around Roy Acuff‘s Smoky Mt. Boys, as their father co-owned a bait store with Acuff’s fiddler Howdy Forrester. Armistead earned to sing from his brother Oswald and now blows a jug that Os played on the Opry as long ago as 1939. Lester also picks a mean banjo.

Leroy Troy - “The Tennessee Slicker” has performed his astounding old time banjo act since the 1980’s at the Knoxville World’s Fair, in the cast of “Hee Haw”, on many recordings, on the high seas, at concerts and festivals all over this country and lately even in Ireland. He’s a past Champion and Grand Marshal from Uncle Dave Macon Days in Murfreesboro Tennessee. Troy gives all credit to old time Opry stars the Bailes Brothers, who taught him show business. He sings the lead on old tunes like Charmin’ Betsy, and besides banjo he also plays an elaborately outfitted scrubboard, after the fashion of long-ago Opry star Robert Lunn who played the scrubboard in Acuff’s show.

Bass fiddle man David “Ferg” Ferguson has spent much of his life as an engineer in a Nashville recording studio helping to capture some of the greatest country music ever cut. He also sings powerful country songs in his deep baritone.

Fiddler Dan Kelly, as a youth, won hundreds of fiddle contests and was a six-state champion -- he even won the Canadian National Open championship at age 12! In 1983 Kelly won the coveted Grand Masters Fiddle championship in Nashville. Roy Acuff hired Kelly to be the Smoky Mt. Boys’ fiddler, and he worked with The King of Country Music until his death in 1992. Since then he has fiddled his way through a number of top country bands including those of Pam Tillis, Steve Wariner, James Bonamy, Faith Hill, Jessica Simpson and SheDaisy. Since 2002 he’s been featured on fiddle and mandolin with Alan Jackson’s band The Strayhorns.

Guitarist and booking agent Mike Armistead, is Lester’s son and heir. He shares lead singing duties with Troy, sings harmony in the trios, books the band, engages sidemen to play Dobro (tm) or whatever, and runs the mercantile empire of their recordings. He runs his own record label in Goodlettsville Tennessee, and is a graduate of the very first International Bluegrass Music Association Leadership School. He also serves the citizenry of Nashville with the Fire Dept.

The Tennessee Mafia Jug Band has a CD “Barnyard Frolic”, and they’ve had a video on CMT and GAC cable tv. They can be heard on the sound track of Faye Dunaway’s movie “Yellowbird“. They provided the entertainment for the society wedding of Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie a little while ago, and they perform concerts all over the south, for bluegrass festivals as far away as Bean Blossom, Indana and even Maine. They have also been on the Grand Ole Opry stage over a dozen times.

Additional Resources

Millennium Stage Home Page

Watch Past Performances

3/26/06: Tennessee Mafia Jug Band Featuring Leroy Troy

Featuring banjo player Leroy Troy, the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band performs “hairy-legged, head-thrown-back, open-throat country singing that’s not for the faint of heart” as heard on its CD Barnyard Frolic. Part of Country: A Celebration of America’s Music.

Tennessee Mafia Jug Band Featuring Leroy Troy

Comment, rate, and more...

Performances

Search by Date

Annual Events

Search by Category

Visit these areas of our website:

Tickets

Buy a Ticket

Subscribe

Customer Help

Box Office

Contribute

Give Now

Support Us

Get Involved

Visit

The Kennedy Center

Area Information

The Venues

Area Map

Explore the Arts

Videos

Live Broadcasts

Interactives

Artists

Blogs

Education

Performances & Events

Arts & Schools

Career Development

VSA and Accessibility

Arts Management

About

A Living Memorial

Our People

Tennessee Mafia Jug Band Featuring Leroy Troy

Additional Resources

Watch Past Performances

Comments