The Mabes: Branson’s Brothers in Song

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BRANSON MO NEWS: From the September 2017 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY KAREN PETERSONNearly 60 years ago, Bob Mabe and his brothers—Jim, Lyle, and Bill—gathered up a guitar, a Dobro, a washtub bass, and the jawbone of a mule and headed for nearby Branson, then a small town in the lush lake country of the southern Missouri Ozarks.
Their first gig was playing for fishermen angling for trout in the cold deep waters of Lake Taneycomo. They also played the authentic old-time music required for square dances that were held in one of the many caves that vein through the limestone hills. “At 50 degrees, your hands on the guitar got a little cold,” laughs Bob, at 86 the sole surviving Mabe brother.
Within a year of their arrival, the brothers made Ozarks history as the first performers in what would become a lengthy playbill of shows that transformed rural Branson into what it is today, “the live music capital of the world,” and a destination for more than five million visitors annually, all of them lovers of traditional country music as performed by such big stars as Kenny Rogers and the Lennon Sisters. Most have come to visit such attractions as Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede and are appreciative of Branson’s reputation for good, clean Midwestern family-style fun.   
“I told my brothers that before long we’d be making maybe $100 a week,” Mabe recalls with a grin. “It took about ten years, but we made a lot more than that.”
The show that the Mabes developed—the Baldknobbers Jamboree—remains one of the most popular acts in a town teeming with first-rate entertainment.

Still a family affair, and calling on a third generation of Mabes (and an expanded collection of instruments), from the get-go the Baldknobbers drew inspiration directly from the family’s …



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