The Smoky Mountain Travelers

The Smoky Mountain Travelers were a five-piece bluegrass band based in Gatlinburg, Tenn., where they played at the Riverside Motor Lodge from 1976 to 1998. Led by Jack Grooms (vocals and guitar, 1930–1998), the band released a number of studio and live albums. Longtime members included Fred McMahan (vocals and bass, 1933–2013), Carl Stump (vocals and mandolin, 1935–2021), and Randy Watson (banjo and guitar, b. 1963). Although the Smoky Mountain Travelers’ roots date back to 1948, the band’s discography can be traced back to 1971’s Blue Grass Grows in the Smokies, which featured the lineup of Grooms, McMahan, Stump, Bill Chambers (banjo, 1935–1990), and Coy Finger (fiddle, 1925–2012). In 1975, fiddler Byron Doss replaced Finger, and the quintet would go on to release Live On Stage in Gatlinburg the following year. In 1976, the four backing members split from Grooms and formed the New Bluegrass Season. Grooms reassembled the Smoky Mountain Travelers with Mynabelle Keller, banjo; Mike Grove, fiddle; Malcolm Link, bass; and Enos Johnson, mandolin. The group appeared on the album The New Bluegrass Sound before Barry McCarter and Tom Caldwell took the places of Keller and Johnson respectively. It was this reshuffled Smoky Mountain Travelers lineup that saw the band’s biggest album success. The group released Smoky Mountain Smoke, Travelin’ Home, and Dreaming of a Little Cabin over the next three years, from which fourteen tracks were culled for the compilation album The Best of the Smoky Mountain Travelers, the band’s bestseller. Link, a former radio jingles singer for the copywriters who opened Thunderhead Sound Studios in Knoxville (where the Travelers recorded in the late 1970s), supplied commanding lead vocals that gave the band a new sound on such tracks as “Foggy Mountain Top” and “Fox On The Run.” Lineup changes abounded over the next decade. Rob Curtis followed Link on bass. Caldwell, who had sung the title track on Dreaming of a Little Cabin, left in 1980 and Stump returned to play the mandolin. Watson replaced McCarter on the banjo beginning in 1982. When Grove left to perform in nearby Pigeon Forge, fiddling prodigy Dorothy Ferris joined the band out of high school. This lineup recorded a handful of albums in the early 1980s, including You Are My Sunshine, Vacation in the Smokies, and Smoky Mt. Memories. By the release of Live in ’85, McMahan had returned to the band following stints with the New Bluegrass Season and the Gatlinburg Grass. He reoccupied his position on bass and Curtis moved to mandolin. The group released the cassette album Wildwood Flower before Bill Lynch replaced Curtis on 1992’s Smoky Mountain Pickin’. Amanda Mathis would join Jimmy Sims for twin fiddle work on a later Smoky Mountain Travelers cassette. The band’s last five-piece lineup included Grooms, McMahan, Watson, Earl Ownby on mandolin, and Sims and a returning Grove sharing fiddling duties. Pictured L–R: Randy Watson, Dorothy Ferris, Carl Stump, Jack Grooms, Rob Curtis.