Lonely Tonight

Del liked it when you would throw something in that was your stuff. He d say, Play it like that. Nobody else plays it that way. Well, if you ve heard any recordings from the 1970s by Bluegrass Hall of Famer Del McCoury classic hard-driving bluegrass hits such as High On A Mountain, Rain Please Go Away, and I ve Endured you ve already been introduced to the banjo playing of Bill Runkle. As a member of McCoury s Dixie Pals , Bill toured and recorded with Del for the better part of a decade. Only Del s son Robbie has held down the banjo player spot for a longer time. Born in 1939, Bill still lives in the tiny community of Brogue, Pennsylvania, just about a mile from his family s home place. Bill s grandfather played the 5-string banjo not in the clawhammer or 3-finger style, but by using a flat pick the way you d pick a guitar, Bill says. Bill s introduction to bluegrass banjo couldn t have come from a better source. Listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio in his dad s 46 Ford, Bill was captivated by the sound of Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys featuring a twenty-something Earl Scruggs on the banjo. I d listen to the Opry til I d run the battery dead on the old man s car. Bill credits another (and future) Blue Grass Boy, Bobby Diamond, with showing him a lot about how the instrument was to be played when Bill took up the banjo in 1959. In just a short while, he was playing full-time in a group called The Country Four , working square dances three nights a week. This led to a six-year stint in a band led by Pennsylvania s popular radio personality Al Shade. As the 1960s came to a close, Bill found himself subbing from time to time with Del McCoury s Dixie Pals. When banjo player John Farmer left the band, Bill began a tenure that lasted nearly eight years. During that period he played banjo on several McCoury albums, including 1973 s High On A Mountain . On subsequent records, Bill sang lead on the duets when Del would move to the high tenor vocal. Bill describes the band s sound Bill Monroe sang to the fiddle. Del McCoury sang to the banjo. He wanted that driving roll on the banjo when he was singing. Del recorded several of Bill s compositions during that time, including I m Lonely Tonight, the title track of this disc. Eventually, Bill and the other members of the Dixie Pals left Del and formed a new group, Square Deal, with Dee Gunter on guitar, pla