Paul "Moon" Mullins, whose bluegrass shows on Middletown's WPFB-AM provided the sounds of home to Kentucky natives working in Butler Country's paper and steel plants, will be inducted posthumously by the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Sept. 29.
Mullins, who died in 2008 at age 71, promoted hundreds of bluegrass concerts on his radio show, and sometimes was emcee for the concerts or played fiddle on the bill with his Boys From Indiana group or The Traditional Grass band with his banjo-playing son, Joe Mullins.
Born in Frenchburg, Ky., in 1936, Mullins made his professional debut as a fiddler with the Stanley Brothers' Clinch Mountain Boys after serving in the U.S. Army 1955-58. He worked for Kentucky radio stations in Grayson, Mount Sterling and Ashland before coming to WPFB-AM in 1964, "where he became the voice of Appalachian migrants," according to Hillbilly-Music.com.
He was so popular that Mullins hosted both morning and afternoon drive on WPFB, which Mullins' would tell listeners stood for "We Play For Briars." Everyone in Middletown called him "Moon Mullins," his nickname from the syndicated "Moon Mullins" comic strip (1923-1991). He worked at the station for most of 25 years until March 1989, except for a brief stint at a Jellico, Tenn., station.
"As a deejay at WPFB from 1964, Moon played a great deal of bluegrass and hard country music," says his Hillbilly-Music.com profile. "This struck a positive chord with the large community of mountain folks who worked in the mills and factories in southwest Ohio cities such as Cincinnati, Dayton, Hamilton, Middletown, and smaller towns. His country dialect was full of metaphors such as describing a dry spell with the comment, 'Have y'all noticed that the trees have been followin' the dogs around?' "
Mullins promoted — and performed at — huge bluegrass festivals at Chautauqua Park, about 10 miles north of Middletown, in the late 1960s which featured Bill Monroe, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Merle Travis, Porter Wagoner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ernest Tubb, Conway Twitty, Kitty Wells, the Osborne Brothers, Don Reno, Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys.
"Mullins’ morning and afternoon programs from the Middletown station were extremely influential in the preservation of this music and served to introduce leagues of listeners to quality bluegrass from the 1960s through the 1980s, playing with and promoting the bluegrass greats along the way," says a tribute to Mullins at Xenia's "Real Roots Radio" WBZI-AM owned by his son, Joe, who also has a bluegrass band called Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers. Moon was a DJ for his son on WBZI-AM, and simulcast on Wilmington's WKFI-AM and Eaton's WEDI-AM, starting in the mid 1990s.
"His broadcasts are valued greatly for his knowledge about the industry, learned first-hand over the years through personal relationships with artists like Bill Monroe, Don Reno, Ralph Stanley, the Osborne Brothers and Ricky Skaggs," says his realrootsradio profile. "But Mullins’ trademark was his down-home, personal style of promoting his advertisers, bringing everyday experiences into a meaningful perspective of their offering."
"When the medium of radio was still a vital connection to every family, Moon Mullins shared bluegrass music and shared his real life connection to its culture," says Steve Martin, the Northern Kentucky attorney and banjo player who hosts the syndicated Unreal Bluegrass show.
"Draw line away from a center named Paul 'Moon' Mullins, strong spokes of a wheel labeled as musician, band leader, songwriter and cultural icon. The sturdy wheel tying them all together, completing the circle, is his great work as a radio broadcaster. Bluegrass needed a radio legend to carry the message. Moon Mullins was the right legend. The music thrived," says Martin, the International Bluegrass Music Association's Broadcaster of the Year Award winner in 2018.
In 2000, while at WBZI-AM, Moon Mullins was named the International Bluegrass Music Association's Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year and presented a Distinguished Achievement Award from the association. He received the Ohio Heritage Fellowship Award for Performing Arts, which honors traditional artists who carry forward the folk traditions of their families and communities in 2007.
Mullins will be inducted along with guitarist-singer Norman Blake and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Peter Rowan.
Blake performed with an A-list of musicians ranging from Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Johnny Hartford to Joan Baez and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Rowan began his professional career in 1963 as guitar player and vocalist in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys before doing a variety of rock, folk and bluegrass projects, including a short-lived bluegrass band with Jerry Garcia called Old & In the Way and writing “Panama Red” for the New Riders of the Purple Sage.
The ceremony will be Sept. 29 International Bluegrass Music Association's Bluegrass Music Awards at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, N.C.
