‘As long as I can open my mouth and sing, I ain’t gonna quit’: Bobby Osborne talks music on Monday’s ‘Issues & Answers’

HAZARD, Ky. (WYMT) - For Monday’s Issues & Answers: The Mountain Edition, WYMT’s Steve Hensley sat down with bluegrass music legend and Leslie County native Bobby Osborne and the Director of the Kentucky School of Bluegrass and Traditional Music Dean Osborne.

Bobby is now 90 years old, still performing and teaching.

Bobby, Dean, and Steve discussed Bobby’s award-winning song White Line Fever, this year’s Osborne Brothers Festival as well as the moment Bobby’s late brother and musical partner Sonny Osborne asked Bobby if he would retire with him.

“I said, ‘the man upstairs put me here to sing,’ and I said, ‘I ain’t gonna quit until he tells me it’s over with,’” said Bobby. “‘He says, ‘you don’t wanna quit?’ and I never started getting to quit. I said, ‘as long as I can open my mouth and sing, I ain’t gonna quit.”

Sonny Osborne retired from performing in 2005 and died last year at the age of 83.

You can hear more from Bobby and Dean tonight at 7:00 on Issues & Answers.

Copyright 2022 WYMT. All rights reserved.