Banjo player Don Stover (March 6, 1928 – November 11, 1996) was born in the coal company town of Ameagle in Raleigh County. Music was a central part of his childhood as his parents entertained the family by playing banjo, though the instrument was off limits to young Stover. Undeterred, he experimented in secret until his mother eventually taught him to play.

By the early 1940s, inspired by Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, as well as five-string banjo players Wade Mainer and Emory Martin, Stover committed himself to mastering the instrument. He soon developed his own distinctive three-finger method, influenced by Earl Scruggs, who had popularized the style.

While working in the coal mines in the late 1940s, Stover performed part time with the Coal River Valley Boys, alongside fiddler Tex Logan, recording “Kentucky Is Only a Dream” and “The Old Grey Goose.” His career took a pivotal turn in 1952 when brothers Bea and Everett Lilly of nearby Clear Creek heard him playing at Glenwood Park, in Mercer County between Princeton and Bluefield. They persuaded him to leave the mines and join them and Logan in Boston. Together, they hosted daily radio programs on WCOP as the Confederate Mountaineers. Eventually, as The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover, the group became fixtures at Boston’s renowned Hillbilly Ranch. Their performances introduced bluegrass to new audiences in the Northeast, establishing them as pioneers carrying Appalachian traditions far beyond the Mountain State.

Stover’s national breakthrough came in 1957, when he joined Bill Monroe and recorded the landmark album Knee Deep in Bluegrass. However, with the rising popularity of rock ’n’ roll and brief decline in bluegrass, he returned to Boston and the steady work of the Hillbilly Ranch. He left again in 1965 to perform with Bill Harrell & the Virginians in Washington, D. C., before reuniting with the Lilly Brothers amid renewed interest in folk music. They made concert appearances, recorded new albums, and even performed at the Mexico City Summer Olympics in 1968. During this period Stover began offering banjo lessons, in addition to performing.

The group’s nearly two-decade residency at the Hillbilly Ranch ended in 1970, after which the Lilly Brothers returned to West Virginia. Stover remained in Boston, continuing to teach, emcee festivals, and lead his own band, the White Oak Mountain Boys. During the 1970s, he also reunited with the Lilly Brothers for festival appearances and two successful tours of Japan, which produced live recordings and sparked a wave of bluegrass excitement in that country. After the breakup of the White Oak Mountain Boys, he performed with the First Generation and took on freelance work. He also appeared at the 1978 Vandalia Gathering.

 In the 1990s, Stover briefly returned to his roots in West Virginia, and later moved to Maryland. Despite declining health, he remained musically active until his death in 1996.

Posthumously, Stover was honored with induction into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame (IBMA) (2002) and in the second class of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame (2008).