The Woolper Mountain Boys entertained Northern Kentucky audiences with their bluegrass music from 2005 through 2009. The band was known principally for having an interpretive bluegrass style and sound that was both traditional yet new and fresh. While this sound was uncompromisingly rooted in the Kentucky bluegrass tradition, they drew from their varied musical pasts to produce a new approach to bluegrass playing - a derivative of classical, rural Kentucky, folk, blues, and country. It was this sound that set them apart from the other Northern Kentucky bands and generated a following of their own.

In the four years they were together, the Woolper Mountain Boys grew from back room bluegrass jammers to mature, multi-instrumental players who were consistently praised for the variety and quality of their performances. Each show was laced with not only great music, but with good stories and even some funny business. They were not a house band, but a restless group of boys who interpreted the music and wrote their own songs and instrumentals as a way of expressing their creativity and contributing to the body of Bluegrass music. It was a cross-pollinated approach mixing all of their musical experiences, with an emphasis on vocal harmonies, acoustical dynamics, and imagination.

They are perhaps most famous for their merging of Middle Eastern and Kentucky Bluegrass in what came to be known as "Bellygrass," performing live with a belly dancing group called "Badyria." Eyebrows went up from Louisville to Nashville, and they even made the trade papers in Music City. Bellygrass was an instant hit everywhere they performed. Yet, it was really more of an experiment for them to see what new sound could be derived from mixing two diverse genres, following in the footsteps of many other musical pioneers who tried to create something new.

Songwriters in the group included Tom Bushelman, Stephen Enzweiler, and Steve Martin, and the group's sound was arranged and engineered by Jerry Schrepfer. Steve Wolfe, a native of Hardin County, Kentucky, brought an originality and freshness of true mountain fiddle sound to the group's playing. Their most popular songs included the racing rhythms of Bushelman's Chester's Breakdown, Enzweiler's wildly funny Yonder In The Woods, tragic Darlin' Willie, and memorable Oxford Town, and the band's signature banjo instrumental, Wobble Mountain, written by the group's legendary banjo man, Steve Martin.

In 2009, growing personal commitments and an inability to keep up with busy performing schedules by some of the band members forced the group to stop doing public performances.
___________________________________________________

For more on the Woolper Mountain Boys and to see pictures from their some of their many performances, visit the Gallery.