Francis pic stephenson Death Fact Check
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Francis pic stephenson - Biography
Francis Stephenson was born in 1932 in New Brunswick, Canada, 100 miles north of the Maine border. He grew up loving and listening to Wilf Carter and Hank Snow on the radio, who were Canada's two country heroes, during the early 40's of World War II. But, around 1941, he started pulling in a radio station hundreds of miles to the south, known as WWVA, Wheeling, W.V. On their Saturday night jamboree, from 8 p.m. to midnight, they had some great old- time artists like Hawkshaw Hawkins, Little Jimmie Dickens, and Cowboy Copas. But, the husband/wife duo Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper (and especially Wilma Lee's voice) was the one that compelled Francis to sing and play guitar. So, in 1946, at age 14, Francis got his first guitar, and started to play and sing. Francis, and nobody else, knew at that time, that Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper's sound would be the closest sound to bluegrass this world would ever hear, until Bill Monroe announced in 1946, that he had invented a unique music and named it bluegrass. In 1955, at age 23, Francis moved to Ventura, Ca. Early in 1956, Francis heard real authentic bluegrass for the first time. It was the Stanley Brothers' first Columbia LP. Before that LP finished playing, Francis' heart switched from country to bluegrass, forever. Even though Francis now has many favorite bluegrass artists, Ralph Stanley is still at the top of the list.
