By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent
 
EDMONTON, Ky. — Brothers Fred and Richard Young of the Kentucky Headhunters grew up on the family farm east of Bowling Green, Ky. Fred, the drummer, explained the Youngs have farm ground that has been in the family since 1798.

“I’m a farm boy and grew up on old tractors,” he added; guitar player Richard loves hunting. Both grew up on the farm loving music and the down-home way of life.

The two brothers make up half of this band, along with cousin Greg Martin and Doug Phelps. In addition, Richard’s son, John Fred, is the drummer for Black Stone Cherry, a rock group that practices in the same old tenant farmhouse they call “The Practice House” – where the Headhunters strummed their first tunes.

The Grammy-winning Headhunters are famous for such songs as “Dumas Walker” and “Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine,” and Fred shares, “It is really a small world; when I first went to New York to play, I was 18 years old. I saw the people were as country as I am, up there. I really liked playing in New York City.”

On the farm is where it all began for the Kentucky Headhunters and where the center of their music continues. The new album that will be released this summer was recorded at the Practice House. One of the new releases has a name that many who grew up during the 1970s can relate to – “Boone’s Farm Boogie.”

The small town of Wisdom, Ky., near where Fred lives, is where his family had a country store used in the video of “Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine.” Richard and Fred live within a stone’s throw of their family farm, Fred’s wife, Marla, and their two daughters, Rachael and Audrey.

They live in a lovely log cabin they built next door to his mother and father. “When I was a senior in high school, Daddy brought the Colonial-style house on a semi truck and attached it to our bungalow-style house, then began restoration,” Fred explained.

The senior Young taught English and history and brought the first herd of Ayreshire dairy cattle to this area from the eastern part of Kentucky. Along with his interest in cattle, their father also loved American Saddle Horses and his was named Roxy Highland of Sprindletop.

“It was the only colt that the famous horse Roxy Highland had. There is a bronze statue of Roxy Highland at the horse museum in Lexington,” Fred added.
Richard’s and Fred’s parents showed horses and his mother rode sidesaddle. These days there are still horses on the farm, although they are retired. Fred feeds and cares for the ones his parents so loved. (Besides Richard and Fred, they also have a sister, Mary Jane, who settled out East.)

 The love of music is a family trait. Fred began playing drums at the age of 10, adding, “Daddy played piano. He played vaudeville riverboat.”

As a boy, Fred said a banjo player lived down the road from him. “I would sit on a bale of hay and listen to it wind down the creek,” he explained.

The brothers both write, too. “It is so easy to write,” Fred said. “I’ll come up with something, then take it to my brother, Richard, and he will twist it so humans can understand it!”

The Kentucky Headhunters started out as the Itchy Brothers, with cousin Anthony Kennedy. After working with the family group for years, for a while Fred played drums for country music star Sylvia and Richard wrote songs for other groups. It wasn’t long, though, before the Headhunters were on the road making music with a style all their own, that really has never been replicated.
“We are who we are. We don’t conform,” Fred said.

He added they are thankful to be able to do what they love, but were surprised by their success. “We were always good, but we didn’t think we could do it for a living,” he admitted.

These days Fred’s hobby is collecting antique tractors and old trucks and Jeeps: “I grew up around tractors. My thing was to buy tractors like I grew up on.”

Reading material for him is usually a tractor book. “When we played at the American Country Music Awards, we were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel. I walked down Sunset Boulevard and went into a bookstore and picked up a Robert Pripps book about Fords. I always wanted Fords, but they were too little for our farm,” he said.

After reading the book, Fred purchased an 8 N. He and Marla have quite a collection on their farm and they like to go on excursions in the old Scout pickup that he bought from a 92-year-old man.

The Kentucky Headhunter band members are former FFA boys. “We all wore our FFA advisor jackets when we won our CMA awards,” Fred said. “We played the national FFA convention in Kansas City a few years ago, and it was great!”
Check out their website for news on the new album release, at www.kentucky headhunters.com