GRAVE MARKERS - 9

 

Matilda J. Owen

Mose Rager

William T. Ralph

Samuel J. & Elizabeth Richeson

Everett E. Sandefur

Mary E. Sandefur

Charley T. & Altha M. Smith

Everett P. & Fannie Mae Taylor

Ignatius P. Taylor

Richard L. & Susan E. (Leach) Taylor

MOSE RAGER

MOSE RAGER

Chet Atkins, Mose Rager, and Merle Travis – 1981

An important and famous musician that invented his own style of playing the guitar.

Mose Rager was born April 2, 1911 in the small Ohio County, Kentucky community of Smallhaus on the Green River. Mose was a barber, and a coal miner, and for some reason never sought the fame other, perhaps less talented people found. He did play with Grandpa Jones, Curly Fox, and Texas Ruby on the road, but he preferred to stay home with his family.

His most famous protege, Merle Travis, never failed to give credit for what he had learned from him. Mose also performed with Merle at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Other famous protégés of Mose Rager were Ike Everly, father of the Everly Brothers, and Eddie Pennington, from Muhlenberg County.

Mose died May 14, 1986, but his "licks" live on, all guitar "thumb picker's" mimic this legend---and his students are many.

In 1992, the city of Drakesboro and his friends dedicated a park in his honor on Highway 176 in front of his home and renamed the highway Mose Rager Boulevard. A fountain honoring the "four legends" is nearby.