Born in High Hat, Kentucky, in 1917, Lou Bourbon, Sr., had become a well-known fiddle player and philatelist by his twelfth birthday. In the late 1930s he briefly joined the Monroe Brothers, recording several unissued sides for the Dry Branch label, including the now legendary original Bourbon composition, “Whose Dang Liquor?” In 1946 he joined the Stanley Brothers, touring the southern United States and Indonesia before leaving the band after a dispute over a laundry bill. Returning to Kentucky, Bourbon eventually married Louisa Capet, his high school sweetheart and a prominent meteorologist. In the hills of eastern Kentucky, the Bourbons reared four boys, all named “Louis” and one daughter, Lucinda. Once asked why he had named all his sons “Louis,” Bourbon is said to have spit and replied, “Hell, if that name’s good enough for all them fancy-assed Frog kings, I guess it’s damn sure good enough for these here no-account boys.” Since their father played fiddle, the boys naturally took up the other instruments of the bluegrass panoply. A prodigy banjo picker and fashion designer, Lou Bourbon, Jr., appeared on the Martha White Radio Hour with Flatt and Scruggs when he was only six years old and infamously asked Flatt why he didn’t wear a shinier suit and bigger hat. After a brief tour with the Kentucky Colonels and a flirtation with electric banjo that led to a short stint in Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (briefly renamed, “E.L.P.B.”), Bourbon returned to Kentucky and formed a band with his younger brothers, who had themselves opened a successful chain of authentic Cambodian restaurants. Meanwhile, their young sister Lucinda had taken up the classical violin, and toured briefly with Yo-Yo Ma and Parliament Funkadelic before joining her brothers’ band. Transplanted to Rhode Island by their love of fried dough and baseball, the Bourbon Boys now form a unique and somewhat incongruent feature on New England’s musical landscape. (Excerpted from the All Music Guide to Bluegrass.)

Lou Bourbon, Jr.

The eldest of the Bourbon brothers, Lou Bourbon began playing banjo at the age of two, mastering the three-finger, Scruggs style by his sixth birthday. He appeared on numerous local radio and television programs in and around eastern Kentucky in the late 1950s and early 1960s, often playing with his father (the senior Lou Bourbon) and wowing audiences with his precocious musical talent and knowledge of electronics. (In 1962 Chet Atkins’ amplifier exploded backstage at the Grand Ol’ Opry and Lou, Jr., was able to repair it using a piece of tin foil and a ball-peen hammer. In gratitude, Atkins is said to have given him a thumb-pick and what he called the best advice he’d ever gotten himself: “Open a drug store, kid. There’s no money in music.”)

As a teenager Lou displayed an innate sense of fashion that both amazed and disturbed his elders. By the age of 14 he had begun to wear his now trademark black hat, duster jacket and vest, presaging a look Lee Van Cleef would make famous in several spaghetti westerns. Upon seeing “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” Bourbon is reported to have said, “Terrible movie. Great clothes.” He briefly attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, before dropping out to play in several jazz combos on 52nd street, where he worked with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Floyd Cramer. Although in those years (the early 60s) the folk scene was burgeoning in New York’s Greenwich Village, Bourbon kept his distance from what he viewed as an attempt to exploit authentic American music in an attempt to destroy American fashion. In one accidental encounter with a young Bob Dylan, Bourbon allegedly told the already famous folkster that he was “the worst dressed harp player in America.” Dylan, stung by the remark, refused to play harmonica for three full hours.

In 1964 Bourbon returned to Hi Hat, KY, and formed the first incarnation of The Bourbon Boys, with his brothers providing support. However, Lou was never happy with the original band and grew frustrated by the success of a folk music movement that eluded him and his brothers. In 1966 he left for England, and spent the next four years moving from band to band, leaving a major mark on late sixties rock-and-roll and psychedelia (chronicled in a series of articles in Rolling Stone, beginning with “The Bourbon Effect: American Banjo Revolutionizes British Rock”, May 1969). His exploits in England are too well known to repeat, but the string of bands in which Lou Bourbon played reads like a “who’s who” of English rock, including the Yardbirds, Zombies, Pink Floyd, and Small Faces. After jamming with Billy Preston in a London club, he returned with Preston to his apartment where he met John Lennon and Paul McCartney and several members of the Russian mafia. At this infamous meeting, Lennon and Bourbon argued about politics and the correct way to prune fruit trees, but allegedly became friends after Ringo arrived and quipped, “Ooo’s the bloke with the big hat and John’s ego?”

After his return from England, Bourbon drifted through various American bands, including Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (and Bourbon); Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Bourbon); and Yes (which briefly became Yes, Bourbon Please), as well as working as a studio musician, stereo designer, and notary public from Nashville to San Francisco. In the summer of 2005, he reassembled the original Bourbon Boys, eventually augmented by the addition of the boys’ younger sister, Lucinda, and The Bourbon Boys have been playing and recording together consistently since that time.

Louis Bourbon

The second oldest of the Bourbon brothers, Louis Bourbon took up the guitar at the insistence of his older brother Lou, who told him “I need a side man, and you’re it.” Louis found his brother to be a harsh taskmaster, and some of the problems in the first incarnation of the band stemmed from battles between the two siblings over issues ranging from the placement of microphones to professional football. A notorious misanthrope, agoraphobic, and Calvinist, Bourbon found public performance difficult for many years. When asked how he overcame his affliction, he told a reporter for Variety that he simply imagined himself without any clothes on. When the surprised reporter asked, “Aren’t you supposed to imagine the audience without clothes?” Bourbon responded, “Maybe, but this works for me.”

After his brother left for England, Louis briefly attended Eastern Kentucky State University, where he studied physics and landscaping. Frustrated by his instructors and an inability to identify zoysia, he left school and returned to Hi Hat. Bourbon spent several years as a fishing guide and (uncertified) public accountant before teaming with his younger brothers to open the first authentic Cambodian restaurant in eastern Kentucky. The Bourbons’ “Kampuchean Palace” immediately attracted the attention of the local gourmands and health inspectors, and its tremendous success spawned a chain that now stretches from Columbus, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2005 the Bourbons sold their interests in the chain to investor Warren Buffet for $12.5 thousand dollars and a green 1962 Plymouth Valiant.

Besides playing guitar and flyfishing, Louis Bourbon enjoys whiskey, tobacco, and reading about T. E. Lawrence and the sixteenth-century theology.

Luigi Bourbon

Luigi, often called the “middle” brother by the other boys, shocked his parents by being born Italian. No one in the Scots-Irish clan has been able to explain this fact satisfactorily, although his mother Louisa Bourbon admitted to enjoying pasta putanesque and mozzarella sandwiches with pesto. Luigi Bourbon has honored his (unexpected) Italian heritage throughout his career, watching “The Godfather” at least twice a year and donning only custom-made, leather footwear.

From his infancy Luigi displayed a marked interest in things mechanical. When he was eight he took apart his father’s lawnmower and converted it into a garbage disposal for his mom. At twelve he had built his own motorcycle using parts from a local junkyard and a Montgomery Ward catalogue. Like his brother Louis, Luigi briefly attended Eastern Kentucky State, where he studied engineering and classical languages before leaving early to help open the family restaurant. Early in the restaurant’s history he developed the now classic “Amok (Trey) Time” dish, which features traditional Cambodian fish served with Vulcan plomeek soup.

Luigi took up the mandolin at age seven at the insistence of his mother, who told him “All Eye-talians play the mandolin.” Despite his love of the instrument and traditional bluegrass music, Luigi also played in several heavy metal bands in the 1980s and 1990s, appearing in many MTV music videos with such groups as Warrant, Guns N’ Roses, and the Cocteau Twins. He has now cut his hair.

Ludwig von Bourbon IV

The youngest of the Bourbon brothers, Ludwig von Bourbon IV—named after his great uncle, Ludwig von Bourbon III, who emigrated from Bavaria to Canada in 1914 and subsequently flew a Sopwith Camel in the First World War, shooting down 22 enemy planes and three geese—is considered by many to be the tallest of the Bourbons. From an early age he was drawn to the string bass, and could play proficiently by age seven while standing on two milk crates. This precarious act developed his innate sense of balance and love of heights, and Ludwig has been an avid mountaineer and rock-climber since his middle teens. In 1997 he climbed K2, spending several years thereafter in the Himalayas studying Buddhism, Neoplatonism, and letterpress printing. While in the Hindu Kush he discovered the lost city of Alexandria Eschate, founded by Alexander the Great around 327 B.C. However, the citizens of Alexandria Eschate took great umbrage at the “discovery,” claiming that they had no need of civilization as long as someone could loan them a dozen or so D batteries.

After leaving Afghanistan Ludwig worked for three years as a male model in Paris and Milan before failing a modeling test in Rome and losing his license to practice pulchritude. Italian newspapers reported that Ludwig called the examiner a “yankee and a fascist,” but Bourbon has denied ever calling any Roman a “yankee.” Upon his extradition to the United States Bourbon was found not guilty of “impersonating an American” and remanded to the custody of the sheriff’s office in Floyd County, Kentucky, where he faced several counts of loitering and misappropriation of coal. Eventually cleared of all charges, Ludwig joined his brothers and sister Lucinda in the reformed Bourbon Boys, although he also maintains a freelance design studio.

Lucinda Bourbon

Lucinda is the youngest member of the Bourbon family, and Lou, Sr. and Louisa Bourbon’s only daughter. Born after most of her brothers had left home, Lucinda grew up in the years Hi Hat, Kentucky, experienced “the big boom,” swelling from a village of about 800 to a town of over 1,300 souls. As a consequence of this influx, Hi Hat built a new Appalachian Center for the Arts, and it was at the ACA that Lucinda ultimately began her study of classical music and Japanese.

Lucinda Bourbon initially resisted her family’s musical tradition, preferring to spend her time painting and collecting stones shaped like famous historical figures. However, by the age of twelve she had taken up the fiddle, quickly mastering bluegrass and classical styles as well as dabbling in jazz after a chance meeting with Stephan Grappelli at a local Dairy Queen. Her love of Ravel and Debussy led to her eventual departure from Hi Hat, where support for the Symbolist movement had all but evaporated. Moving to New York City and joining Greenpeace, Bourbon also worked as a freelance violinist and journalist, publishing several pieces in Harper’s, The Atlantic and Popular Mechanics. In New York Lucinda found it difficult to establish her own identity despite the Bourbon family name, a problem underscored by an infamous incident at a Stravinsky conference held at Carnegie Hall. When a noted music critic told her that it was impossible for “a Bourbon” to play “serious” music, she allegedly broke into a version of Paganini’s Caprice in A minor that left the columnist speechless and caused the Juilliard students present to erupt in violence. Spilling onto the street, the famous “Bourbon Riot” led to the destruction of several newspaper kiosks and to the notorious New York City ban on the public performance of Paganini’s 24 Caprices, with the exception of #3.

However, by her third year in New York Lucinda had played with all the major American symphony orchestras, the London Philharmonic, and Earth, Wind, and Fire, with the last engagement demonstrating her growing interest in soul. Leaving the city, Lucinda toured briefly with Itzhak Perlman and Parliament Funkadelic. Her relationship with Perlman was strained, and the two reportedly quarreled over the relative merits of luthiers Amati and Guarneri and the proper way to hail a cab. Bourbon found George Clinton a more congenial collaborator: Clinton has referred to Bourbon’s playing as “Solid funk”, and Bourbon called Clinton “A fine person and a snappy dresser.”

Lucinda Bourbon joined her brothers in 2006 and gave The Bourbon Boys their now classic incarnation. Apart from her musical work with her brothers and many other musical enterprises, she is a fully qualified anthropologist, specializing in south Pacific cultures and Neolithic forms of group dance, especially the Hustle.

Les Bourbon

The son of Lou Bourbon, Sr.’s brother, Luke Bourbon, Les Bourbon has recently joined The Bourbon Boys in order to allow Ludwig to spend additional time with his design firm and girlfriend. Les Bourbon spent his early years traveling the country with his father’s musical review, in which he learned to play every instrument of the bluegrass ensemble as well as oboe, baritone sax, and contra-bassoon. (His collection of musical instruments is currently so large that he has purchased a second home in which to store his string basses and ukeleles.) Les eventually joined the United States Navy, in which he served for 12 years, spending part of that time in the U.S. Navy Bluegrass Orchestra. The USNBO performed all over the world, and provided the official entertainment at two presidential inaugurations and three Pillsbury Bakeoffs. In 1992 the USNBO won the Grammy Award for “Best Recording by an Armed Services Bluegrass Orchestra,” and Les accepted the award on behalf of the group, tipping his hat to the audience and saying merely “Right on.” Bumper stickers with Bourbon’s image and the phrase “Right on” continue to be the hottest selling item at the USNBO’s website (www.usnbo.net.gov.bluegrass/merch/righton).

Best known for his work on the upright bass, Les Bourbon has played with numerous established acts since he was mustered out of the service in Newport, RI in 1998, including Rocky Hollow, Blue around the Edges, and Aerosmith. He has also provided technical support for the U.S. Navy nuclear submarine program and regularly teaches martial arts and home-brewing. It was Les Bourbon who contacted Lou in 2004 and told him about the opportunities for bluegrass musicians in Rhode Island. Encouraged by Les and Lou, the boys (and eventually Lucinda) settled in southeastern New England, where they have now established The Bourbon Boys, Inc., a holding company comprising all the Bourbons many musical, philanthropic, and pharmaceutical enterprises.

Moe Bourbon

The latest member of the Bourbon family to join the band, Moe Bourbon is the son of Lou Bourbon, Sr.’s brother Lute. Although a multi-instrumentalist (specializing in the harpsichord, piccolo trumpet and other instruments of the Baroque era), Moe made his name in the musical world by writing the first philosophical treatment of Bill Monroe’s lyrics. His seminal paper, “Footprints in the Snow: Monroe and the Vestiges of Neo-Kantian Metaphysics in an Appalachian Context,” appeared in the American Journal of Hermeneutics in 1972 and won the Nietzsche Prize at the International Conference of Epistemology and Automotive Repair held at the University of Tübingen in 1973. Bourbon’s presentation of his thesis led to a famous exchange with noted German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who accused Bourbon of violating the principles of communicative rationality. Bourbon, in turn, said that Habermas couldn’t tell an axiom from a theorem and, moreover, “Plays golf like an Irishman.” This debate resulted in Habermas losing half of his current graduate students, most of whom took up journalism or professional wrestling.

In the early 1980s Moe Bourbon gave up professional philosophy and took up beekeeping. In an interview early in this period (Time magazine, June 13, 1982) Bourbon compared bees to academic philosophers, although he noted that “Bees are a lot nicer, and they actually perform a valuable social function.” At the same time, Bourbon focused his musical interests on the mandolin and lute (in honor of his father), as well as the mandocello and electric guitar. Heavily influenced by Segovia, Paco De Lucia, and Hendrix, Bourbon’s early string work won praise from critics as diverse as Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner and Richard Nixon, the latter once telling David Frost that he couldn’t stand “rock music” and then proclaiming, “What I need is Moe Bourbon.” Frost, confused by the remark, offered the famously abstemious Nixon a glass of whiskey, to which Nixon responded, “This is not what I wanted, you British twit,” before quaffing the beverage and winking into the camera. In subsequent years Moe Bourbon played with many power trios and bluegrass bands, including briefly replacing Alex Lifeson in Rush. The band, briefly known as Bourbon Rush, toured New Zealand and the Philippines before Bourbon remarked to reporters that he found Neil Peart’s drumming “derivative and pedestrian” and his lyrics “totemically adolescent.” Stung, Peart reportedly confronted Bourbon with the question, “What the hell does that mean?” Bourbon, according to one report, responded, “Well, you love Ayn Rand don’t you? ‘Nuff said.”

Joining the band in early 2010 in order to allow Luigi Bourbon to pursue his current business interests in China and South Dakota, Moe Bourbon has brought both his excellent musicianship and love of poststructuralism to The Bourbon Boys.