Lester Raymond Flatt was born in Duncan’s Chapel, Overton County, Tennessee, to Nannie Mae Haney and Isaac Columbus Flatt. In 1931, Lester married Gladys Lee Stacy (1915-2014), a native of White County.  Scroll down this article to read Gladys’ memories, published in the Sparta, Tennessee, Newspaper, when she was 97.

Lester’s grandfather, Jonas H. Flatt (1839-1896), was a private in the 28th Tennessee Infantry (2nd Tennessee Mountain Volunteers) in the Confederate States Army. Jonas’ brothers, John Madison Flatt and William Harrison Flatt, also served the Confederacy. The unit saw action at Shiloh and Chickamauga.

Lester left school early and went to work in the local sawmill with his father. Lester subsequently went to work at a shirt factory, where Gladys was his boss. While working in the mill, Lester got a part-time job at radio station WDBJ to perform with “The Charlie Scott Harmonizers.” Later, Lester teamed up with Clyde Moody and performed a few shows in and around Burlington, North Carolina.

In 1943, using the stage name Lester Flatt, he played mandolin and sang tenor in The Kentucky Pardners, the band of Bill Monroe’s older brother Charlie. Lester first came to prominence as a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1945 and played a thumb-and-index guitar style that was in part derived from the playing of Charlie Monroe and Clyde Moody.

In 1948, Lester started a band with fellow Monroe alumnus Earl Scruggs and, for the next 20 years, Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys were one of the most successful bands in bluegrass. When they parted ways in 1969, Lester formed a new group, the Nashville Grass, hiring many of the Foggy Mountain Boys. He continued to record and perform with that group until his death in 1979.

Lester’s role as rhythm guitarist and vocalist in each of these seminal ensembles helped define the sound of traditional bluegrass music. His solid guitar playing and rich lead voice are unmistakable in hundreds of bluegrass standards. Lester is also remembered for his library of compositions.

Lester appeared in A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Dutch (1991) and Sweet Dreams (1985).

Lester Flatt was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985 with Earl Scruggs. Lester was posthumously made an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1991. His hometown of Sparta, Tennessee, held a bluegrass festival in his honor for a number of years, before being discontinued a few years prior to the death of the traditional host. Lester Flatt Memorial Bluegrass Day is part of the annual Liberty Square Celebration held in Sparta, Tennessee.

Flatt and Scruggs were ranked No. 24 on CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. They performed The Ballad of Jed Clampett, which was used as the theme for the television show The Beverly Hillbillies and appeared on that show from time to time.

Lester Flatt died of heart failure in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 64.

Click here for his extensive discography.

Source: Wikipedia.org and IMDb.com

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Facebook: The Legend of Lester Flatt

Click here to visit a public Facebook group called “The Legend Lester Flatt.” 

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Remembering Her Sweet Baby’s Arms

by Kim Swindell Wood, MySpartaNews.com
Published: Tuesday, April 1, 2014 8:03 AM CDT

A petite and beautiful dark-haired woman whose endearing stories of her late husband Lester Flatt kept everyone mesmerized as she recalled their lives together has now passed on to rejoin the man she always talked about with fondness.

Gladys Flatt, who was 98 when she passed away on March 31, 2014, has left an indelible mark on the Sparta community. She will forever be known as the wife of bluegrass legend Lester Flatt; however, Gladys also had her own claim to fame.

The following story was originally published in October 2002 when Gladys talked about her memories of the man she adored and how they met as young teenagers.

Just like the memories of yesteryear, Gladys Flatt only gets better with age. Her stories of a day and time that were spent enjoying the musical heyday of the man she loved are mesmerizing and intriguing.

Flatt was born July 29, 1915, and her beauty at 87 years old still surpasses that of many women who are half her age. She recollects the day when she met Lester Raymond Flatt and how the bashful teenager won her heart.

“I had gone to a girlfriend’s house,” Gladys said. “We were walking to church when a car pulled up and a young man asked us where we were going. We said we were going to church, and he said, ‘Get in and I’ll take you.’”

This coincidental meeting was the beginning a love story that would expand through decades of struggle and success. Lester and Gladys were married in 1931 when he was only 17 and she was 16. Lester continued to work in the sawmill for his father. Eventually, he went to work at the shirt factory, where Gladys was his boss.

“He didn’t like that too much,” Gladys said, as she laughed out loud.

Gladys vividly recalls every moment of her life with the bluegrass legend, almost as if she were talking about events that took place yesterday.

“I liked it when we played with Charlie Monroe,” she said. “Charlie didn’t mind women singing in the group; and when he and his wife Betty found out I had sung with Lester, they asked me if wanted a job, too.”

Gladys said Lester bought a bus and would travel on the weekends at the beginning of his career.

“He did well in North Carolina,” she said. “He’d put the boys in the back and had a place fixed up for them to sleep. It was around this time when he got his break with Charlie Monroe.”

According to Gladys, Charlie Monroe was at the height of his career. He was the brother of Bill Monroe, who was just hitting the charts with “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” According to Gladys, the two brothers were “equally big.”

Somewhere during this rollercoaster ride to the top of bluegrass fame, Lester received a telegram from Bill Monroe.

“I intercepted the telegram,” said Gladys said. “I sort of held on to it all day and thought about if I wanted to give it to Lester. I knew Bill didn’t like women singing with his group, and that would mean I couldn’t perform with Lester any more.”

Gladys grinned with her gorgeous, yet sly, smile.

“I did give it to him, but I didn’t have to,” she said. “Just think about what would have happened if I hadn’t.”

The rest of the story is now bluegrass history, as Lester Flatt rose to national and international fame through his work with Bill Monroe.

“Lester worked with Bill for about five years,” Gladys said. “Bill came to me and asked for my help. He asked if I would beg Lester to not quit.”

Gladys said there have been many books and articles written about Lester’s life, which have not been completely accurate.

“They just don’t know the whole story,” she said. “I always knew he would go somewhere in life. He was so talented. Songs would just come to him out of the clear blue.”

Gladys recalled when Lester wrote one of her favorite hymns.

“We were riding down the road,” she said, “and all of a sudden he just started singing the words to a song. He said to me, ‘Gladys, write this down.’ I didn’t have one piece of paper, but there was a paper bag in the back seat. I picked it up and wrote down the words to Be Ready for Tomorrow may Never Come.”

Lester Flatt was a legend in bluegrass music, and Gladys said he wrote approximately 300 songs, all of which he recorded. Lester was always helping young people get started in the music industry, and Gladys said she was not surprised when he came home one night and told her about a young singer and musician he had met.

“Lester told me he had heard this young boy sing,” said Gladys said. “He thought the boy needed a break in Nashville because he had talent. The only problem was his parents lived in Mississippi, and they wouldn’t let him stay in Nashville unless he stayed with us. Well, Marty Stuart ended up living with us for about three-and-a-half years.”

Gladys has maintained her interest in the music industry since Lester passed away on May 11, 1979. Her extended family is where she devotes her time and energy. She had been an advisor and mentor for her grandson-in-law, Mike Brumfield, who has rerecorded one of Lester’s hit songs, “Roll in my Sweet Baby’s Arms.

Brumfield’s wife Tammy is the granddaughter of Gladys and Lester Flatt.

Tammy, who is the daughter of Brenda Flatt Green and Milton Herren, said this is the first musical experience her grandmother has had in 45 years.

“She gave up her musical career for my grandfather,” Tammy said. “We just want her to have a chance to shine in the spotlight again.”