Penny Parsons won an IBMA award for her collaborative biography of Seckler

Shortly after noon central time, Curly Seckler one of the last living links to pre-World War II southern music, died on December 27, 2017, two days after his 98th birthday. Curly began playing music professionally in 1935, more than a decade before he would become a bluegrass music pioneer. In 1938, Charlie Monroe hired him shortly after the Monroe Brothers’ streams diverged. Even before the 21st Century began, Curly had already played music professionally in seven decades.

Even when he was little older than I am now, he seemed to me of an early time, of music played in school houses, bars, and drive-in movie theaters. Like his friend Doc Tommy Scott, Wade Mainer, Aunt Samantha Bumgarner, Dellie Norton, Howard Armstrong, Norman Woodlief, or Joe and Odell Thompson. He could connect you to a time you’ll never know, in a place that hardly resembles what they knew.

Tennessean obituary for Curly Seckler (December 25, 2017)

Bluegrass Today obituary for Curly Seckler (December 25, 2017)