The Easter Brothers have been playing music together for more than 50 years now. Hailing from the mountain music-rich area of Surry County, N.C., Ed, Russell and James Easter have taken the music of their roots and carved out a unique style over the years.
They will perform tonight at the Mountaineer Opry House in Milton. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $5 for children younger than 12.
The Easter Brothers, who were recently featured in Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine, began recording in the early 1960s at King Records in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"We used to record for King Records back in 1961," said Russell Easter. "We did some sides for them back when Reno and Smiley were up there."
The Easter Brothers band also includes Russell Easter's son and grandson Russell Jr., a multi-instrumentalist who plays the banjo and 12 other instruments, and Jared Easter on bass. Earlier this year, the group released a well-received DVD and CD project called "We Are Family," which features a concert filmed in Mount Airy, N.C., during the Mayberry Days Festival in 2007. It combines the talents of the Easter Brothers, Jeff and Sheri Easter and the equally legendary Lewis Family.
The group has enjoyed its time in the bluegrass community and has built a following all over the country.
"It's great, and I love it," said Easter, about the bluegrass community. "I was born and raised with that kind of music, and I'm still with it today. It's something that just gets in your blood, and it's hard to change. I really love what I'm doing."
The Easter Brothers also are known for their original songs such as "They're Holding Up The Ladder," and many of them have become bluegrass gospel standards.
"We've got a lot of fans everywhere," said Easter. "You go somewhere, and you don't think you're known or anything, but we write most of our songs, and we've got some songs where we hear them before we get up to sing them. We went to Wisconsin about two years ago, and that's way on up in Wisconsin. After you get to the Wisconsin line, it is another eight-hour drive to get to where we were at, and I thought that nobody had heard of us up there. But when we got there, they sang two of our songs before we got on stage. They all knew us, and they came from up in Canada and places like that to see us because we hadn't been up there that far before."
Growing up in Surry County, the Easter Brothers were fortunate enough to know some of the great mountain musicians that came out of that part of the country who have since passed on, such as the legendary fiddler Tommy Jarrell.
"I knew Tommy, and heard him (play) many times," said Easter. "He was just a fine fellow. He was like the Easter Brothers, really, as his whole heart was wrapped up in music."
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