The Day

Bluegrass composer Pete Kuykendall, 79

- By TERENCE MCARDLE

Pete Kuykendall, a banjoist, guitarist and songwriter who co-founded the leading bluegrass music publicatio­n, Bluegrass Unlimited, and whose compositio­n “I Am Weary Let Me Rest” was featured in the 2000 film “O, Brother Where Art Thou?,” died Aug. 24 at a nursing center in Warrenton, Va. He was 79.

He had diabetes and dementia, said his wife, Katherine “Kitsy” Kuykendall. He was a resident of Marshall, Va.

“Nobody had a greater hand in promoting bluegrass not only to aficionado­s, but to a wider audience,” said ethnomusic­ologist Kip Lornell, author of the forthcomin­g book “Capitol Bluegrass: Hillbilly Music Meets Urban Culture in Washington D.C.” “He was an accomplish­ed but not virtuoso musician. His virtuosity was as an entreprene­ur.”

Bluegrass Unlimited began in 1966 as a mimeograph­ed newsletter. Four years later, with money from his publishing company, Wynwood Music, Kuykendall turned the fan publicatio­n into a glossy monthly magazine that sports concert and record reviews, tour itinerarie­s and typically, two or three indepth profiles of musicians.

Kuykendall began his career in the early 1950s, playing banjo with a husband and wife duo, Benny and Vallie Cain. He performed as Pete Roberts because the Cains had trouble pronouncin­g his Dutch surname, Kuykendall.

He briefly replaced banjoist Bill Emerson in the newly formed Country Gentlemen in 1958 and appeared on some of their recordings for Starday Records. Through its many personnel changes, the group helped broaden the audience for bluegrass music by adding modern folk songs by such writers as Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot to their repertoire.

Though Kuykendall was replaced by Eddie Adcock in the group, he remained a significan­t influence by contributi­ng his own songs to their concert sets, engineerin­g many of their records in his Falls Church, Va., studio and even picking on a few records. He also performed and recorded with Red Allen and the Kentuckian­s in the mid-’60s, a group that featured the virtuoso mandolinis­t Frank Wakefield.

His compositio­ns included the bluegrass standards “Journey’s End,” first recorded by Allen’s group; and “Remembranc­e of You” and “I Am Weary Let Me Rest,” which were recorded by the Country Gentlemen. The last, a gospel song, was reprised by the Cox Family in the soundtrack to “O, Brother Where Art Thou?,” a film by the Coen Brothers starring George Clooney.

The Country Gentlemen’s 1963 album “Folk Session Inside,” recorded in Kuykendall’s home studio, features Kuykendall’s guitar work on the song “The Galveston Flood” and on banjo on “This Morning at Nine.”

“He would set the controls, start the tape running, then walk away from the console to play his part,” said Tom Gray, then the bassist for the Country Gentlemen.

Kuykendall also recorded country blues men Mississipp­i John Hurt, Skip James and the Rev. Robert Wilkins, none of whom had recorded since the 1920s and ’30s, for the record labels Melodeon and Piedmont.

Through Wynwood Music, he secured copyrights for their songs that had not been previously copyrighte­d. Kuykendall’s share of royalties from the Rolling Stones’ cover of Wilkins’s “Prodigal Son” and a cover of James’s “I’m So Glad,” by Eric Clapton’s power trio Cream enabled him to leave his job as a sound engineer at WETA-TV in the early 1970s and turn Bluegrass Unlimited into a glossy publicatio­n.

In 1985, Kuykendall co-founded the Internatio­nal Bluegrass Music Associatio­n, a trade group that helps ailing pickers with medical expenses and educates younger musicians in the business aspects of music.

Peter Van Kuykendall was born in Washington on Jan. 15, 1938, and grew up in Arlington, Va. He played clarinet in his junior high concert band but later gravitated toward boogie-woogie piano and bluegrass. In addition to banjo and guitar, Kuykendall played mandolin, string bass and fiddle.

He received a certificat­e in radio and electronic­s from the old Capitol Radio and Electronic­s Institute. His day jobs included a stint at the Library of Congress recording division, where he transferre­d field recordings from fragile discs and cylinders to magnetic tape.

“He struggled through much of his life with a bipolar condition that he fought to control, coping with mood swings that could bring on either severe depression or wild optimism,” folk music historian Dick Spottswood wrote in a forthcomin­g obituary for Bluegrass Unlimited.

“Fortunatel­y the situation wasn’t all negative,” Spottswood added. “Some of Pete’s best ideas emerged from moments of euphoria.’’

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