Guitarist and vocalist Carlos Brock is best known for helping to assemble the Country Pardners group, a dynamic early bluegrass band out of the Cincinnati area that scored an RCA recording contract and enjoyed an extensive local following. Brock was one of the most attractive bluegrass frontmen on the scene, inspiring his bandmate Bill Price, normally not one to soft-soap, to compare Brock to heroic frontier lawmen characters such as Matt Dillon. The group's recordings were wonderful, and some have been reissued by Rounder as part of its fine The Early Days of Bluegrass series. Brock has other admirable credits on the historic bluegrass scene, including stints with Sonny Osborne, at a point when this artist was barely 15 years old, and Red Allen, who in contrast actually was the legal age to get drunk on-stage, at least in this era of American history. He enjoyed a fairly long period of employment as a guitarist and frontman singer in Bill Monroe His Bluegrass Boys, at least by the standards of this group's revolving door of pickers, young and old.

Brock met Price and a banjo player named Bobby Simpson at the Cincinnati record store of Jimmy Skinner, a famous bluegrass hang-out whose owner eventually invested in broadcast equipment and began live radio shows from the rows of record racks. The place was something of a launching pad for the Country Pardners, who were quickly courted by both RCA records and the publishing firm of Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff, but perhaps not as important as the home of Brock's mother, where the new group rehearsed for a month. "She wouldn't charge us no board," Bill Price recalled later in interviews, and, "It's good she didn't, we didn't have any money much." George Jones, at that point a completely unknown entity, came at the group with a silly ditty entitled Why Baby Why, but by the time the Country Pardners told producer Chet Atkins that the group wanted to record it, he had to tell one and all the unfortunate news that the group had been beaten to the question by both Red Sovine and Webb Pierce both of whom had versions of Why Baby Why ready to be released. Brock went into the army before the group had a chance to do more than one recording session, which produced four sides. Meanwhile, the popularity of bluegrass waned in the wake of the oncoming of rock roll and its artists such as Elvis Presley. The situation forced Brock out of the music business, and he eventually wound up based in Jacksonville, FL, where he raises cattle and has a weekend band with his brothers Lonnie and Bobby Brock. Price died before realizing his dream of reuniting all the old members of the Country Pardners for a bluegrass festival. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi