Curtis Blackwell
Curtis Blackwell (died July 23, 2026) was a bluegrass guitarist and singer who led Curtis Blackwell & the Dixie Bluegrass Boys for about six decades. He played in the Westminster High School string band in South Carolina as a teenager and performed on the Grand Ole Opry with the Sunshine Melody Boys in 1960. That year, at 17, he won a radio talent contest in Toccoa, Georgia, with his brother Haskell Blackwell and Junior Crowe. The Dixie Bluegrass Boys grew out of that group and became regulars at the Shoal Creek Country Music Park in Lavonia, Georgia. Blackwell sang lead and played guitar with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys for a short time in 1967, taking the spot Peter Rowan had left. The Dixie Bluegrass Boys won the band contest at the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention in 1970. The win led to a recording contract and the album Shadows of Time, recorded in New York City. The band toured the Southeast through the 1980s and '90s, and at times its lineup included all three of Blackwell's sons. He later lived in Otto, North Carolina.
In the newsletter
- No. 24 Fall 2000