The Bellamy Brothers & Roni Stoneman

Whether delivering punchlines on television’s “Hee Haw,” or displaying her prowess on the banjo, Roni Stoneman—who died February 22 at age eighty-five—brought smiles to audiences’ faces for more than sixty years. Hailed as “The First Lady of Banjo,” Stoneman was one of twenty-three children born to fiddler Hattie Stoneman and country recording pioneer Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman (a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame since 2008). “They were passing through Washington, going to a picking job,”