Born 64 Years Ago in El Paso, the Bluegrass Star Who Played With Jimmy Martin and Rhonda Vincent Before Launching a Solo Career

On this day (August 18) in 1962, Audie Blaylock was born in El Paso, Texas. He was a seasoned bluegrass picker who could play guitar and mandolin. Blaylock spent the early years of his professional career playing mandolin for Jimmy Martin. After serving as a sideman for several artists, he formed a band and released several albums.

If anyone was born to be a musician, it was Blaylock. His family was incredibly musically inclined. Both of his parents played instruments. On the weekends, they would get together with their extended family to play and sing together. After being surrounded by pickers and singers, Blaylock started learning to play the guitar by ear when he was eight years old.

“I pretty much learned playing with my family and also on my own,” Blaylock told the Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association. “I played by ear. I’m not a trained person, per se,” he added. Before long, he was playing mandolin and guitar in local bluegrass bands. Then, when he was 19, Jimmy Martin invited him to join the Sunny Mountain Boys.

Audie Blaylock Joins Jimmy Martin’s Band

Audie Blaylock grew up going to bluegrass festivals. After he honed his musical skills, those festivals doubled as networking events. ”…You meet this person, and you meet this person and, before you know it, you’re playing in a band,” he explained. “It was kind of a natural thing.” That’s how he ended up playing mandolin in Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys for nearly a decade.

“I kinda met a couple of guys in his band, and we hung out and did some picking,” Blaylock recalled. “Jimmy got to know me that summer and he needed a mandolin player,” he added.

“I was playing in a local bluegrass band. We had played in northern Michigan and had gotten home at about four or five o’clock in the morning. Then, I got a phone call probably around 7,” Blaylock recalled. “The caller said, ‘Is this Audie Blylock? This is Jimmy Martin.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, which one of you yahoos out there is trying to pull some kind of trick?’ I thought it was someone in the band. He just kept talking. It didn’t even slow him down,” he said.

Finally, he realized he was talking to the real Jimmy Martin. “I need a mandolin player. Do you think you know all the songs? Well, meet me down here on Thursday,” Martin told him. A few days later, Blaylock was staying with Martin and preparing for his time in the band.

The Road to a Solo Career

After playing in Jimmy Martin’s band for nine years, Audie Blaylock left and signed on with Red Allen in 1990. He remained in Allen’s band until he died in 1993. Then, he moved to Lynn Morris’ band, where he played mandolin and guitar. Later, he played with Harley Allen, Red Allen’s son, for a few years.

In 1999, Blaylock started playing guitar and singing harmony vocals in Rhonda Vincent’s band, the Rage. Then, he joined Michael Cleveland’s Flamekeeper for roughly a year.

In 2004, Blaylock formed his band, Redline. “I think there comes a time when you want to do what you have in your head, and it got to that point,” he said. “So, we started the band in 2004 and the first full season was in 2005. I just wanted to do my own thing and play my own music.”

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Audie Blaylock and Redline released their self-titled debut album in 2009. They released five more albums over the next decade. Their final release, Originalist, dropped in 2019.

Featured Image by Jay West/WireImage