The history of The Osborne Brothers is, like many early Bluegrass groups, a rich one that begins in Hyden, Ky and matured in Dayton, Ohio.  Prior to forming the brother group, Bobby Osborne played in several bands such as the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and a short lived duo with Jimmy Martin before being drafted in the Army in the early 1950s.  When Bobby went into the Army, Jimmy Martin joined Bill Monroe�s Blue Grass Boys and soon urged Monroe to hire Bobby�s younger brother Sonny on as banjo player.  Sonny, beginning at age 14, served two years in the Blue Grass Boys.  When Bobby returned from the Army in the mid-50s, the brothers decided to form their own band (which included Jimmy Martin) and were soon a featured act on WWVA�s Wheeling Jamboree radio program.
Throughout the years, the Osborne brothers have been noted for their innovations in the Bluegrass genre such as drums, steel guitar and being one of the first groups to electrify their instruments.  Some of these innovations were not always accepted enthusiastically, if at all, by the Bluegrass audience.  Fred Bartenstein, a Bluegrass promoter and historian tells a story in his commentary track to the DVD Bluegrass Country Soul of a disgruntled fan using wire cutters to snip the cable between Sonny�s banjo and the amplifier in protest.
These additions to the Bluegrass sound coupled with the Osborne�s unique three part vocal harmony help make the Osborne Brothers sound one of the most unique and identifiable in music.
As with many Bluegrass bands, the line-up of the band has changed with mercurial fluidity over the years and in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the years covered by these two new releases, the group had what Sonny and Bobby call one of their best line-ups.  Aside from these two releases the core line-up was only captured in the studio on 1991�s Hillbilly Fever, 1994�s When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland and 1996�s Class of �96.
The first release, Live in Germany, features the line-up of the Osborne brothers, Terry Eldredge on guitar and vocals, Terry Smith on bass and vocals and Steve Thomas on fiddle and vocals.  Eldredge and Smith are now members of the award-winning Grascals.  This 2-CD/1 DVD set was recorded in Germany in 1989 during a concert that was part of a brief tour with Bill Monroe.  The story goes that the show was recorded by a concertgoer (recording of Bluegrass concerts to tape, thought generally audio, was a common practice that has diminished in recent years) and came to the attention of Pinecastle Records, the current recording home of The Osborne Brothers.  The tapes were purchased from the fan and remastered to produce the release.
The two discs contain 22 songs between them and cover almost all of the group�s hits as well as some choice covers of classic songs such as the traditional �Wreck of the Old �97� and Ernest Tubb�s �Walking the Floor Over You.�
The sound quality is excellent, delivering a clear mix that makes it hard to believe the tapes came from a fan recording.  Of course, the two years of arduous work of Sonny Osborne and engineer John Eberle put in to master the tapes into shape help a lot.
When putting the DVD in the player it is important to remember that this was shot by a fan using a 1989 camcorder.  It is a single camera mounted toward the left side of the stage and stays there for the duration of the show.  The picture isn�t bad, but there is a crowd seated between the camera and the stage and at a couple of points people have to be reminded by the camera operator to sit down or move to the side.  Some crowd chatter is also audible, but not to the point of distraction.
Three of the 10 songs on the DVD are not included on the CDs, including one of their biggest hits, �Rocky Top.�
In Concert at Renfro Valley, the second of the two releases, is actually a re-release of the hard to find VHS release of a 1992 show filmed at Kentucky�s Renfro Valley Theater.
The line-up featured on this show is the same as the 1989 concert line-up with the change in fiddle duties from Thomas to David Crow and the addition of Gene Wooten on Dobro.  The band runs through nine songs on the DVD and it is professionally shot by Kentucky Entertainment Television.
It is interesting to note that �Ruby� does not appear on the DVD.  The song, one of the group�s hits and a fan favorite to this day, was a song that Bobby picked up at a young age in Dayton.  The story is told that as a young boy he heard the song on a jukebox as sung by Cousin Emmy and the Kinfolk.  He then sang the song on a local radio show where his father occasionally appeared and the station was swamped by telegrams requesting him to return and sing the song.  It is possible that the song was very familiar to the people of the Dayton area because nearly 10 years earlier John Lair had broadcast the weekly Renfro Valley Barn Dance program, featuring Cousin Emmy, from Dayton before moving it to its current home, and DVD concert site, the Renfro Valley Theater.
These releases give people to opportunity to see this line-up and also to see a band that can�t be seen live anymore.  In 2001, Dobro player Gene Wooten passed away and in 2004 Sonny Osborne was forced to retire from banjo due to surgery on his rotator cuff.  Eldredge and Smith, as noted above, carry on in the Grascals while Bobby Osborne continues to play with his band Rocky Top X-Press.
Both of these releases capture a band in fine form featuring two Bluegrass legends and band members that have gone on to establish themselves as keepers of the flame of innovation passed on from the Osborne Brothers.