Eddie, known by anyone who knows country music, is blessed to be the working encyclopedia of country music, and can rattle off facts and history (without notes) as good as anyone alive. And he's self-taught, which means that he has lived it and studied it. Plus he's only a little over 45 years old.

But Eddie is also a very talented musician. A vicious fiddle player and singer, he was a member of The Johnson Mountain Boys. He also played fiddle for such greats as Kitty Wells.

What makes Eddie Stubbs such a great fiddle player? All one has to do is listen as he performs. You need not even watch, although if you did, this explanation wouldn't be needed, as you'd see his love of the craft. Eddie simply attacks that fiddle and wrings every single ounce of wail and high lonesome out of it that he can get.

To understand what I'm saying, find and listen to "The Johnson Mountain Boys", "Live At The Birchmere", released by Rounder Records in 1984. Listen to Eddie's fiddle parts on the song "Highway of Sorrow", and then you'll clearly understand. There are hundreds of other examples, but this is one of my favorites.

There is a "rub" in this story. One of the most popular shows on WSM is on Friday nights after the conclusion of the Friday Night Opry performance. Eddie, who usually does the stage announcing, walks over to the radio station and does "By Request," about a two-hour long show where he takes requests and dedications. He does a weeknight show as well. He still plays albums, and the pops and scratches on the air only give his show more respect -- he plays the magical music in our lifetimes regardless of the limited means that we have to hold onto them. The "rub" is that he won't play his own work. That's how modest and humble he is. When his sidekick, Jason Tomlin, a talented brother of the air does the show he does proudly play Eddie's music. But what impresses me the most is that sometimes Eddie will play a work of magic, so wonderful and so intense, that Jason is moved so that he has to come on the air and testify about it. Eddie's power.

So, if you love real country music and you want to find out more, you can go to WSM Online. There you can stream both live and archived performances of both the Opry and Eddie's shows and interviews. Or on most nights if you have an antenna, you can get WSM 650, live from Nashville. That is the way things used to be done, and that is one of the things that makes radio magical. It's still the theatre of the mind. In this high-tech world, nothing interests me more than a good old-fashioned radio show….Oh, and the other thing that makes radio magical? My friend, Eddie Stubbs.

Brad Moyers of Burnsville, is an eight-year radio broadcaster, and devoted student of music. Readers may contact him at brad.moyers@yahoo.com.