What keeps Del McCoury, coming to The Burl, going strong at 83? Keeping it fun.

Few things will restore faith in living artistic tradition and the very human ability to cherish and appreciate your chosen craft after perfecting it for 60-plus years than an hour on the phone with Del McCoury.

At 83, McCoury is a reigning patriarch of bluegrass music who worked for Bill Monroe in the early 1960s before raising a family that eventually yielded two sons who became champion instrumentalists and, eventually, cornerstone members of the award-winning band that bears his name.

But none of that explains the immediate smile a conversation with McCoury puts on your face. That comes from an artist who speaks with unassuming wisdom and unspoiled joy of a grandparent – someone with the ability to spin a story from the past full of astonishing detail, whether it deals with tagging along as Monroe bought a tour bus from Kitty Wells or an extended explanation of how he met and forged a lifelong friendship with the late Kentucky banjo legend J.D. Crowe.

The sensation is very much reflected in the spirited but steadfast bluegrass tradition that abounds on albums by the Del McCoury Band, be it 2006’s “The Company We Keep,” 2014’s “The Streets of Baltimore” (both Grammy winners) or the new “Almost Proud.” But in conversation, you discover the true fire in the engine room that keeps McCoury, his band and his music driving and thriving after six decades: attitude. He’s got one of the best in the business.

“I know with a lot of people, they get older and they’re playing music to make a living and don’t really enjoy it,” said McCoury who performs in Lexington this weekend at The Burl with the full Del McCoury Band. “I still enjoy just playing. We don’t have a setlist or anything. When we get up there, we have no idea what we’re going to do at that show. It keeps the boys on their toes and interested. You know, you’ve got to have fun or it ain’t no fun. When it stops being fun, it starts becoming hard work. I just never figured what I do as work.”

Beginning his career as a banjoist, McCoury switched to guitar upon joining Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in 1963. But Monroe had a greater musical agenda in mind for his new employee. He wanted McCoury to double as a vocalist. To this day, one of the defining aspects of any musical project McCoury is involved in is a resilient, emotive and seemingly effortless high mountain tenor. On “The Misery You’ve Earned” (one of the highlight tunes from “Almost Proud”), it soars with the vigor and range of an artist half his age. Make that an artist half the age of an artist half his age.

“Bill was a guy who never really told you do this or that or how to sing, or how to play,” McCoury said. “When I came in the band, I had been playing banjo for about 10 or 11 years. The first day I played with Bill, he said, ‘I need a lead singer and guitar player.’ I thought, ‘I don’t know about this.’ Bill said, ‘I think you’ll like this better than playing that banjo.’ I thought, ‘Ah. He’s wrong there.’ But he was right about that. The thing about it was when I eventually quit his band and got out on my own, I thought, ‘You know, I better play the guitar.’ The guys in the band needed a rhythm guitar behind them to stay right in time.

“But as far as singing, I can sing all night long and I won’t get hoarse. It’s funny. I never do warm up before going out onstage. I’ve heard a lot of singers say, ‘Now, you warm up, don’t you?’ And I say, ‘What do you mean ‘warm up?’ You mean warm up my hands?’”

Of course, father Del is not the only McCoury in the long-running Del McCoury Band. Since the late ’80s, sons Ronnie (on mandolin) and Rob (on banjo) have been vital co-pilots in creating a new generational interest in McCoury’s music that grew into a full-blown career renaissance in the early ’90s. The ensemble’s popularity continues to this day with longtime members Jason Carter (fiddle) and Alan Bartram (bass). So established is the band’s musical command that it regularly performs without Del as The Travelin’ McCourys.

“It never dawned on me that someday my boys would be playing with me. When they were small, I was touring with a four-piece band without a mandolin player. It was more economical at the time. But Ronnie, he wanted to play mandolin, so I said, ‘You can come along and play rhythm.’ That was in the summer when he was out of school. Well, he did and he learned a whole lot that year. He was learning that mandolin by leaps and bounds.

“Then Robbie, he came along and he liked banjo. Now, he’s a southpaw. I told him, ‘I know for a fact if you’re left-handed, you can still play a right-handed instrument, so I got him to do that. I said, ‘If you get a left-handed banjo made for you, you can only play that instrument. You can’t pick another one up and play it. That’s important because musicians are always playing other people’s instruments, so he learned to play that way and did really well. He’s still playing great.”

As for his relationship with Crowe, McCoury expressed regret at having to decline an offer to join one of the banjoist’s early bands at its acclaimed local residences in Lexington clubs began in the 1960s.

“At the time JD had quit playing with Jimmy (Martin). Then he heard a tape of me playing at a festival in ’65. He called me up and said, ‘They’re going to let me start a band here.’ I had been playing with Monroe on the road up to that time. J.D. was tired of the road, too, I think. Lo and behold, my father had a massive heart attack that night. J.D. wanted me to come that weekend and start there in Lexington. I told him, ‘I can’t come now.’ I said, ‘See if you can get somebody for this weekend.’ So he got Red Allen and he stayed with J.D. to make records and everything.

“We were good friends, though, right to the end. I miss him so much. J.D., Sonny Osborne and myself, we were all three influenced by Earl Scruggs at the same time - like, in our teens. When I was going to high school, all the kids were listening to Elvis Presley. It was nothing but Elvis, but when me and Sonny and JD heard Earl Scruggs, that was it. We were ruined for life.”

The Del McCoury Band

When: April 29, 8 p.m.

Where: The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd., outdoor show

Tickets: $30 at theburlky.com

This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 6:00 AM.