Court Square Stage, Saturday

Van, Vernon and John Colbert hail from Willow Springs, Missouri.

Van Colbert plays a unique "two-finger" roll style that he learned from the family. "Mom and Dad instilled in us the love of their music, and to this day we play, sing and remember," he says.

According to Van, his grandfather, Hall Colbert, moved his family from the Buffalo River region of Arkansas during the depression years. He and his wife Ethel and their four boys (Leon, Bob, Truett and John) and their four daughters (Geneva, Gladys, Jewell and Marge) came to the community of Amy in Howell County in a horse and wagon. Hall was a Baptist minister and a singer. All of his children sang a cappella in a deep nasal hill country style that needed no accompaniment.  Memories of their voices together or solo during family reunions can still raise the hair on the back of Van's neck.

Their father, Joseph Truett Colbert was named for a famous turn-of-the-century minister. He taught himself to play a banjo he built by stretching a ground hog skin over the hoop for a head. He taught Van's older brothers to chord the guitar and enjoyed playing along once they could carry a tune. He learned to play banjo from Homer Treat, a performer featured on volume one of the "Echos of the Ozarks" album. 

Mother Veronica May (Easley) Colbert was also a beautiful singer and a lady. They still get her to sing "Beautiful Brown Eyes," "Red River Valley," "Maple on the Hill," and "Wildwood Flower" to their accompaniment. She also sings many old time gospel songs.