Brothers Melvin and Ray Goins (December 30, 1933 – July 29, 2016; January 3, 1936 – July 2, 2007), celebrated figures in bluegrass music, were born near the Mercer County coal town of Goodwill into a large, musically gifted family. The brothers grew up surrounded by musical tradition.

Working the cornfields of their family farm, they immersed themselves in music. At lunchtime, they tuned in to WCYB’s “Fun and Farm Time,” listening to the Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, and the Tennessee Hilltoppers—all of whom shaped their own music.

After convincing a relative to give up his guitar and bartering a few farm animals for an old banjo, their cousin Tracy Dillon gave them their first lessons. By the early 1950s, the brothers were performing as the Shenandoah Playboys on small-town radio shows and at local gigs.

Over the next two decades, they performed as the Goins Brothers, while also playing both together and separately with groups such as the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, Hylo Brown & the Timberliners, and the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys—where Melvin entertained audiences as comic character “Big Wilbur.” Because bluegrass had yet to achieve mainstream popularity, they supported themselves with a variety of other jobs, including laboring on farms, mining coal, running a grocery store, and working in a furniture factory.

In 1969, the brothers reunited to form the Goins Brothers Band, which remained active into the late 1990s, and Melvin continued playing festivals well into the 2010s. The brothers recorded numerous albums and performed at major venues and events, including the Grand Ole Opry and the Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife. Committed to their roots, they also brought bluegrass to rural schoolchildren and organized festivals across West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Their contributions earned wide recognition. In 1993, Melvin became the first bluegrass musician featured on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine. Together, the Goins Brothers were inducted into the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Hall of Fame (2001), the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame (2007), and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame (2013).