Bradley Kincaid

Radio Entertainer, Folk Singer, Songwriter, Businessman. As a young child he learned his first songs from his parents. He would entertain family and friends using his "Hound Dawg" guitar, of which his father, a farm laborer, traded one of his foxhounds for. He served two years during World War I, and for a brief time after the war, he worked as a salesman for the Storrs-Schaefer Tailoring Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. Resuming his education at Berea College Academy in Kentucky, it was during this time that his interest in music intensified. He began to strategically collect mountain ballads, hymns and old-time songs. Pursuing his education in Chicago led to his debut radio performance on the National Dance Barn, a radio program heard widely throughout the Midwest. He became a regular cast member on the program earning the nickname "The Kentucky Mountain Boy" for his renditions of old ballads he had learned while growing up in Kentucky. Lucrative opportunities ensued and he went on to have similar success at radio stations in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Boston, and other cities. During his career, Kincaid had worked with banjo player Louis Marshall Jones and teasingly called him "Grandpa Jones" because of Jones' early morning grumpiness. Jones liked the name, decided to keep it, and built his stage persona around it. Kincaid's first edition songbook called "My Favorite Mountain Ballads" sold more than 100,000 copies. He published 13 songbooks, made numerous personal appearances in theaters and other venues, as well as commercial recordings for a variety of labels. Throughout the remainder of his career he continued his "Radio Circus," a tent show format for personal appearances, which he started while working in New York. His last major radio work was on WSM's Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter's Hall Of Fame in 1971. After moving from Nashville to Springfield, Ohio, being retired from show business, his business efforts there as a radio station and music store owner were successful.