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Paul
“Moon” Mullins,
this year’s recipient of the Ohio Heritage Fellowship
for Performing Arts, has done as much as anybody over
the past 45 years to make southwestern Ohio a hotbed for
bluegrass and hard-core country music. Both as a bluegrass
fiddler and bandleader and as a radio personality on WPFB
in Middletown (1964-1990), Mullins has promoted bluegrass,
its audience and the culture that produced it with pride,
enthusiasm, respect and integrity. His afternoon radio
shows on WPFB are legendary and they made him a household
name throughout Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. He’s
been a fixture at WBZI in Xenia since his son Joe Mullins
bought the station in 1995. Born in 1936 in Frenchburg, Kentucky,
Mullins spent two years in the 1950s playing fiddle
with the Stanley Brothers. He has subsequently performed
and recorded as a fiddler with such bands as the Nu-Grass
Pickers, Valley Ramblers, Bluegrass Playboys, Paul Mullins,
Noah Crase & the Boys from Indiana and the Traditional
Grass (with his son Joe on banjo), and has made guest
appearances on dozens of other albums. Mullins received
the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International
Bluegrass Music Association in 2000 honoring his work
as a musician and broadcaster.
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