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(Excerpt from The Teneeseean article mentioned above)
Bass player Jimmy Stoneman dies
By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer
His music kept 'family's feet jumping,' sister says
Oscar James "Jimmy" Stoneman, the singing, playing Stoneman Family's frenzied upright bass player, died Sunday from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Mr. Stoneman was 65 years old. He was living at a nursing home in Smyrna.
"His bass playing is what kept the family's feet jumping,'' said sister Patsy Stoneman, who performed with her brother until the country music family retired from the road in 1994. ''Everybody on stage was moved by Jimmy's bass. He didn't just stand and play; he rode that thing. He was going to town with it."
Mr. Stoneman was a son of musicians Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman and Hattie Stoneman. With his father and four siblings, he made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry in 1962 and recorded albums for labels including Starday and MGM. In 1967, the Stonemans won the Country Music Association's Vocal Group of the Year Award.
After Pop's death in 1968, sister Patsy replaced the elder Stoneman and the group recorded on RCA Records. Later editions of the Stonemans worked without sisters Roni and Donna, and non-family members filled in the spaces.
Patsy Stoneman remembered her brother as a kind and talented person, but also as a no-nonsense businessman.
Another write up can also be found from the September 28, 2002 edition
of the:
Los Angeles Times
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