Bill Harrell and Irvin Utz
Mark Opsasnick’s incredibly researched book, Rock the Potomac, is chock-full of stories and biographies of the people and groups who were part of the history of rock ‘n roll and country music in the DMV. “Rock the Patuxent” provides excerpts from the book that highlight the greater Laurel area.
Bill Harrell
With a career that spanned several decades, singer-guitarist Bill Harrell is one of the most popular figures in bluegrass music. Known for his easy-going, traditional approach to music, Harrell was responsible for spreading bluegrass to a wide audience in the nation’s capital and across the United States. He got his start in music while living in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1950s, and was known for fronting his own band, Bill Harrell and the Virginians, and for playing in the nationally acclaimed outfit Don Reno and Bill Harrell and the Tennessee Cutups. In his time, Harrell was a featured performer at night clubs, concerts, and festivals all over the country and remains a revered figure in bluegrass music.
George William “Bill” Harrell was born in Marion, Virginia in 1934 and received his first guitar at the age of nine. As a youth he took piano lessons and learned to read music. While still a youngster, Harrell’s family relocated to the Washington, DC, area and bought a house in Riverdale.
Harrell graduated from Bladensburg High School in 1952 and then enrolled at the University of Maryland. During his college years he played guitar and mandolin in local bluegrass night clubs like the Pine Tavern and the Shamrock Restaurant.
In the 1950s, Harrell began putting together his own bands. In the mid-50s he led an outfit he called Bill Harrell and the Rocky Mountain Boys. In 1957 he joined the United States Army but was sidelined for a year after being involved in an automobile accident. Upon his discharge in 1959, he returned to the Washington area and formed another band, Bill Harrell and His Virginia Mountaineers. This group conducted several recording sessions at Empire Records and Recording Studios in DC, with several of the resulting songs being released as 45-rpm singles on Starday Records.
In 1960 Harrell put together the first edition of Bill Harrell and the Virginians. They soon recorded and released their first album, The Wonderful World of Bluegrass Music. During the early 1960s they performed regularly in DC at the Famous Restaurant and the Shamrock Restaurant. The band went on to headline concerts, fairs, and festivals up and down the Atlantic Coast, in addition to performing regularly on The Jimmy Dean Show television program.
In 1963, while keeping up with his own band, the Virginians, Harrell began performing with banjoist Don Reno in a group billed as Don Reno, Bill Harrell and the Tennessee Cutups. They recorded and released their first album, The King of Bluegrass. The group headlined fairs, carnivals, and bluegrass music festivals all over the United States. In 1967 Don Reno moved to Riverdale and for several years during the late 1960s and early 1970s Don Reno, Bill Harrell and the Tennessee Cutups performed on a regular basis at the Oxon Hill Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George’s County. Reno and Harrell remained musical partners into the late 1970s. Through the years they released more than two dozen albums.
In early 1977 Bill Harrell and the Virginians reformed and concentrated on playing two particular venues in the DC area: DiGennaro’s Restaurant in Laurel, where they performed on a weekly basis from 1977 to 1980, and Bambino’s Restaurant in Riverdale, where they were a regular attraction from 1978 to 1981.
Despite changes in personnel, Bill Harrell and the Virginians remained one of the world’s most-highly acclaimed bluegrass bands and continued to perform and record into the 21st century. Bill Harrell passed away in 2009 at the age of 74.
Irvin Utz
Singer Irvin Utz grew up in Landover Hills. During his time at Bladensburg High School in the early 1970s, he sang in a popular rock and roll band called Joint Possession. Joint Possession developed into one of the area’s most popular bands with the younger crowd and regularly played in Prince George’s County at the St. Mary’s Catholic Church Teen Club (Landover Hills), the Cooper Lane Teen Club (Cooper Lane Elementary School in Landover Hills), the Beacon Heights Teen Club (Beacon Heights Elementary School in Riverdale), and the Tuxedo-Cheverly Fire Department (Hyattsville). The group disbanded in 1973.
Utz next sang in the rock and roll band Ichabod Crane, which formed later in 1973. Ichabod Crane was best known for its lengthy run as the house band at the Back Alley Lounge, a nightclub situated in the back portion of the Cross Roads in Bladensburg. The group was a popular attraction on the local music scene for more than two years.
Utz next went on to sing for other popular DC area rock and roll bands, including Vintage (in the 1980s) and Random Access (in the 1990s).
In 1997 Utz put together the Bad Weather Boyz, a hard-driving rock and roll group that was especially popular in the Maryland suburbs at nightclubs like Lasick’s College Inn (College Park), the Riverdale Pizza Pub (Riverdale), Oliver’s Saloon (Laurel), the California Inn (Laurel), Willy K’s (inside the Holiday Inn Washington DC/Greenbelt), and Mike’s Crab House (Riva). The Bad Weather Boyz played their last gig in 2015.
In recent years, Utz has performed as a singer-guitarist with many other bands and musicians, including Johnny Seaton and Bad Behavior, blues singer-guitarist Andy Poxon, rock and roll singer-guitarist Martha Capone, and rock and roll singer-guitarist Dan Dorsey. He has also appeared onstage at the New Deal Café in Greenbelt with such performers as: a jazz group called the Susan Jones Quartet; blues singer-harmonicist Waverly Milor; and the rock and roll band T.C. and Friends—a band that featured singer-keyboardist Tom Constanten, who was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1968 to 1970 and, as part of that group, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the “Performers” category in 1994.
Rock the Potomac is available at booklocker.com/books/10190.html.
Mark Opsasnick was born in Washington, D.C. and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland. To date he has authored nine books and innumerable articles on popular culture, rock and roll music, and unexplained phenomena. He resides in Prince George’s County and gives talks and presentations on local music history, in addition to emceeing and hosting live music shows throughout the Delmarva region.
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