2024 Inductee

The year 2024 marks 56 years since Betty McLain urged her husband, Raymond K., to start a family band with their young children. The McLain Family Band began their first weekly television broadcast in Hazard, Kentucky, on WKYH-TV (now WYMT) in 1968. Since that time, they have performed in all 50 states and 64 countries during their 15 international concert tours, some as musical ambassadors of the U.S. Department of State.

Recipients of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award, The McLain Family Band has been featured on prestigious stages including the Grand Ole Opry, Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Carter Family Fold.

As the first bluegrass band to perform major works with symphony orchestras, the McLain Family Band has given more than 230 concerts with over 100 orchestras nationwide, performing traditional songs, McLain originals, and compositions written for them by renowned composers, Philip Rhodes and Peter Schickele, and with conductors such as Erich Kunzel, Mitch Miller, Newton Wayland, and Richard Hayman. These orchestras include Cleveland, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Louisville, Oakland and Phoenix as well as the National Symphony, The Houston Pops, and the Calgary and Buffalo philharmonics.

From 1977 to 1988, they hosted The McLain Family Band Festival, the first one in partnership with the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, and located in Renfro Valley, the successive 10 years, on the family’s farm at Big Hill, Kentucky. The McLain Family Band Festival was featured on the CMA Country Music Awards Show on CBS, NPR’s Folk Festival USA, and produced by Kentucky Educational Television for national distribution. Some of the McLain’s other television appearances include NBC’s Today Show, The CBS Morning News, ABC’s Good Morning America, The Pearl Bailey ETV Special, The BBC, TNN’s Nashville Now and the Johnny Cash Christmas Special.

The original members of The McLain Family Band were Raymond K. McLain, and three of his children, Raymond W., Alice, and Ruth. Alice’s husband, Al White, has been part of the band since 1977. He, Daxson Lewis, Raymond, Alice, and Ruth form the currently touring group. Important band members who are not currently touring with the group include sister, Nancy Ann, brother, Michael, and his wife, Jennifer Banks McLain.