Gloria Belle
American bluegrass vocalist and instrumentalist, playing the banjo, bass, and mandolin. Born June 9, 1939 in Silver Run, Maryland. Died May 5, 2023.
Most notably, she performed as a member of Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys between 1968 and 1978. With Martin, she sang lead and high baritone on multiple recordings, as well as played bass. She toured Japan with Martin during 1975, and made her last recordings with him in January, 1978.
She was probably the first female lead singer in bluegrass, having begun her music career as early as 1957.
Around 1958 she began working with Hanover, Pennsylvania-based band Gary Epley and the Cheerful Valley Gang.
She was a cast member on the Cas Walker show in Knoxville, Tennessee, from September 1960 to the summer of 1965. That summer, she she found a job in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, at the Wild West-themed amusement park, Ghost Town in the Sky. Among the artists with whom she appeared while in the region were Panhandle Pete and Raymond Fairchild. In the Fall, Belle worked briefly with the McCormick Brothers at their old-time square dances near Gallatin, Tennessee.
The next year, she made regular appearances on the Wheeling Jamboree in West Virginia, performing with Betty Amos's All-Girl Band.
In 1967 she was brought in to front the all-male band, The Bluegrass Travelers, from Frederick, Maryland, after Bill Berry was killed in 1966 in a tragic car accident. She changed their name to Gloria Belle and the Green Mountain Travelers. This arrangement was short-lived, as by 1969, she had moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to work full-time as the snare-drum player with the Sunny Mountain Boys. After about a year she changed to acoustic bass.
In the spring of 1972, she took a break from working with Martin and joined an all-female country dance band, the Nashville Kitty Kats in Richmond, Virginia. By August, she was back with Martin.
In 1973 she toured the festival circuit with Charlie Monroe, often as a duo, but sometimes with the Sunny Mountain Boys backing them.
In 1980, Belle returned to Knoxville and partnered again with Danny Bailey, and taped the Cas Walker Show twice a week until it ceased in April 1983. While there, she worked with Bonnie Lou and Buster Moore at Pigeon Forge, filled in with a band in Gatlinburg, and sang and played guitar with a group that did conventions in the area. Also, with the Bailey Brothers she appeared at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, and with a female guitarist Joy King at the fair’s Women’s Week.
From Knoxville she moved to south Florida where she formed an all-girl group, Foxfire.
Belle married guitar luthier Mike Long of Mike Long Guitars on September 23, 1989. The couple, who had picked together informally since the mid-1970s, formed Tennessee Sunshine in 1990.
In 1999, Belle was presented the Distinguished Achievement Award by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) and became one of the few females to ever earn that award.
In 2001 she also received an IBMA award for Recorded Event of the Year for Follow Me Back To the Fold: A Tribute to Women in Bluegrass.
Another IBMA award came in 2009 through her work with the Daughters of Bluegrass. She received a Recorded Event of the Year award with this group for "Proud to be a Daughter of Bluegrass."