Kentucky Headhunters on 50+ Years in Music Ahead of Master Musicians Fest

Editor’s Note: All reporting and photos are from Saving Country Music contributor Jason W. Ashcraft unless otherwise noted.

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To the unknowing mind, The Kentucky Headhunters name itself might conjure up a slightly negative stereotype of some dangerous backwoods fugitives who would behead outsiders. However, the reality is the complete opposite.

The Kentucky Headhunters is the chosen name for one of the Bluegrass State’s most humble, beloved and celebrated country, blues and southern rock family bands of all time. They proudly hail from the small farm town of Edmonton, Kentucky, and from a state that is undoubtedly rich in its contributions of some of the greatest songwriters and recording artists on the worldwide stage.

You know the names already. Bill. Loretta. John. Dwight. Ricky. Patty. Keith. Tyler. Chris. Sturgill. Shall I keep going? Now add The Kentucky Headhunters to that list in your mind from this day forward. 

The core foundation of the Headhunters is brothers Richard and Fred Young, cousin Greg Martin, and friend Doug Phelps. Richard and Fred first began playing music together in 1967 on their farm.

On a lonely country road outside of Edmonton exists what is simply known worldwide and among the Young family as the “Practice House.” It’s is nothing more than a dilapidated house, but it’s exactly what it sounds like, surrounded by plush vegetation and cow pastures, and the inside walls are covered in photos with the band’s history and those they collaborated with over the years.

It is the creative space where decades worth of the Young Brothers family bands, including Black Stone Cherry, have come together since 1968 to hone their sound, find themselves as musicians, and write their songs, all in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky.

“We’ve always been interested in rock music, even when we were kids before we even started playing,” Fred Young recalls. “Our cousin Anthony Kenney also played, and us three started as a band in 1967 called Truce.”

The Young brother’s Truce band in 1968 would evolve into Itchy Brother after another cousin, Greg Martin, moved from his hometown of Louisville to Edmonton, to join the band. They began performing primarily in Edmonton and Glasgow, along with regionally around Kentucky, and throughout the south and Midwest. Around that time, Greg Martin was also performing in the Young’s family band while also balancing a touring career with Curb Records artist Ronnie McDowell. 

“​​The first night, [Greg Martin] came to stay all night with us, and we jammed out and everything,” Fred remembers. “He brought NRBQ’s first album, and ‘Disraeli Gears’ by Cream. So that’s the kind of stuff we were listening to.”

However, it wasn’t until 1986 when The Kentucky Headhunters namesake was first established. The Young brothers, along with cousin Greg Martin recruited Doug Phelps to make up the core of the band as we know it today. Doug’s brother Ricky Lee Phelps joined the band briefly as well.

Over the years, The Headhunters have built their musical reputation and methodologies by doing things their own way, and not bowing down to standard industry norms, formulas for success, and instead remaining true to their rock and blues musical roots throughout their longstanding careers. 

Yet despite doing things their own way, The Headhunters did find mainstream success with their landmark 1989 album Pickin’ On Nashville, recorded at Sound Shop in Nashville and released by Mercury Records after being signed by President Harold Shedd. 

The album would thrust the band from the Kentucky underground and into the mainstream. Catchy, hook-laden songs which genre hopped between country, blues and southern rock made up the album, leading with their self-written feel-good anthem “Dumas Walker.” Clever renditions of Bill Monroe’s “Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine,” and Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me” propelled the album and produced several Top 40 placements on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart including a Top 10.

The album also achieved RIAA certified Double-Platinum status, and landed the band their first GRAMMY Award in 1991 for Best Country Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal. They would also take home award brass for the ACM’s Top New Vocal Group in 1990, and was the CMA’s winner for Vocal Group of the Year in 1990 and 1991, and Album of the Year in 1990. Undoubtedly, this humble little Kentucky country rock band had arrived fast and furious onto the worldwide stage.

The band’s second Mercury Records imprint release of Electric Barnyard in 1992 didn’t achieve the commercial success of Pickin’ On Nashville, but songs like “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” “With Body and Soul,” and covers of Waylon Jennings’ “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line,” and Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit In The Sky,” gave fans more of the fun-loving musical charm that made them household names just two years before. The album did earn a RIAA Gold certification, peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and earned them a second consecutive CMA award for Vocal Group of the Year.  

The Headhunters released 1993’s Rave On album with the introduction of Mark S. Orr and cousin Anthony Kenney taking the lead on vocals. The album did not fare as well as their previous two as the band continued to evolve and grow as recording artists. Singer and bassist Doug Phelps and guitarist Richard Young have continued to front the band into the modern era, and together they have released 13 studio albums since 1989, as well as three live albums.

Since the early 2000’s, Richard Young has also had his hands in the success of other artists through management, most notably his son John Fred Young’s massively popular southern hard rock band Black Stone Cherry. Richard also co-wrote several of Black Stone Cherry’s first few songs on their first two albums.

With Black Stone Cherry growing into its own contained worldwide musical force, he’s more recently discovered and managed The Georgia Thunderbolts, another promising southern rock band still in the beginning of their career as musicians. Richard also manages the estate of Rock Hall of Famer Johnnie Johnson who was Chuck Berry’s Pianist, and with whom the Headhunters had recorded albums with over the years, including their 1993 album, That’ll Work and 2015’s Meet Me In Bluesland.

In 2013 the Headhunters were inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, an honor they especially cherish because they were being inducted into the same class as two of their other in-state musical heroes and influences, Exile and Jackie Deshannon.

In 2021, they released their 13th studio album That’s A Fact Jack, which contained songs written almost entirely by The Headhunters, and recorded at Barrick Studios in Glasgow, Kentucky. One song, “How Could I” was co-written between Richard Young and Black Stone Cherry, marking the first recorded collaboration between Richard and his son John Fred and his bandmates for a Kentucky Headhunters record. 

The Headhunters had also been waiting in the wings for more than 30 years to receive their invitation to perform on the Grand Ole’ Opry stage, which finally happened on Dec 04, 2021. In the early ’90s when the Headhunters released their debut album, Pickin’ on Nashville, Bill Monroe approached Roy Acuff about having the group perform on the Opry stage.

Recalling how Bill Monroe had approached Roy Acuff in 1989 about having the Headhunters perform on the Opry, Richard said “And Roy said, ‘well, they’re probably good boys and would do a fine job. But let’s go get them some clothes and get them a haircut before we do it.’ Well, obviously, that was the end of that conversation. So, all these years passed from 1989 to 2021. And they finally asked us to be on it again.”

“I must say The Kentucky Headhunters had to take a deep breath, twice, when our publicist Don Murry Grubbs called to say we had been asked to be on the Grand Ole Opry stage for the first time,” Richard remembered.

Now, the Kentucky Headhunters are looking ahead to their upcoming performance in the 32nd annual Master Musicians Festival, taking place July 11-12 in Somerset, Kentucky. They’ll be headlining along with Jamey Johnson and a slew of both seasoned and up-and-comers artists like Buffalo Wabs and the Price Hill Hustle, Hunter Flynn, The Creekers, Cody Lee Meece, among others. 

Master Musicians Festival has an established track record of bringing some of music’s masters to its stages over the years. And it always keeps its focus on giving artists hailing from the Bluegrass State a place on their stages. It’s played host to the likes of John Prine, Willie Nelson, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Billy Strings, WYNONNA, Dwight Yoakam, Old Crow Medicine Show, Nappy Roots, among a slew of other established and up-and-coming singer-songwriters and recording artists of all musical genres.

Independently operated and ran by a non-profit board led by Executive Director Tiffany Finley, the festival grounds are nestled within the campus of a small community college tucked away in the heart of Southern Kentucky’s Cumberland Valley in the foothills of Appalachia.

As fellow Kentucky writer and journalist Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”