Jim Mills (banjo player)

James Robert Mills (December 18, 1966 – May 3, 2024) was an American musician known primarily as a bluegrass banjo player who played in the three-finger style popularized by Earl Scruggs. Mills was also well known as an expert on pre-war Gibson banjos. He resided in Durham, North Carolina.^[1]

Mills worked as the banjo player for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder for 14 years until the summer of 2010, when he left the band to focus on his business buying, selling and trading rare pre-war banjos.^[1] In the 1980s, prior to his stint with Skaggs, Mills performed for five years with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.^[2] He has three solo albums and has performed on many others. He has won the IBMA banjo player of the year award six times (1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006), more than any other player,^[3] and also won IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year for his Bound to Ride album.^[1] Mills has won six Grammy Awards.^[2]

Mills owned several pre-war Gibson Mastertone banjos, including the famous "Mack Crow" banjo (named after its original owner, it is the only factory-produced gold-plated RB-75 that Gibson ever made) and the RB-4 previously owned by the late Snuffy Jenkins. Huber Banjos produced a Jim Mills signature model based on the Mack Crow. Mills released a book on pre-war Gibson banjos in 2009, Gibson Mastertones: Flathead 5-String Banjos of the 1930s and 1940s.^[4]

Mills died from a heart attack on May 3, 2024, at the age of 57.^[5]