Roy "Pop" Lewis, patriarch of The Lewis Family performing group, of Lincolnton, Ga., died shortly after noon Tuesday at age 98.
Mr. Lewis, internationally known to both bluegrass and gospel music fans, had been in Wills Memorial Hospital in Washington, Ga., for about three weeks, family members said.
With his family, Mr. Lewis had been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1992 and had received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2001.
As a gospel music pioneer in his own right, he had been inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 2000.
The worlds of bluegrass and gospel music are close-knit families, and Mr. Lewis was one of their best-known and best-liked family members.
"He was a people person," said Polly Lewis Copsey, the middle of his three daughters and lead Lewis Family vocalist. "No matter where we went, he was the first off the bus to greet everybody.
"He never was sick until he needed surgery in 2000," she added. "I don't think he probably ever missed more than five engagements in the more than 50 years he traveled with us. He just never was sick."
His last performance was Friday, May 2, 2003, at The Lewis Family's 16th annual Homecoming Bluegrass Festival at Elijah Clark State Park near Lincolnton.
"We kind of interrupted Barbara Poole and Larry Sigmon doing their program to bring Pop on because he was doing so good," another daughter, Janis Lewis Phillips, recalled. "He sang Never Grow Old and then got a standing ovation singing Just One Rose Will Do."
On the final day of last year's festival, he was taken to the Lincoln County Historical Society's morning dedication of a pavilion honoring The Lewis Family in Lincoln County Historical Park.
Through his leadership, The Lewis Family rose from singing on Lincoln County porches in the late '40s to performing in the Lincoln Center in New York City, both the new and old Grand Ole Opry buildings in Nashville, Tenn., and the Baird Auditorium at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"Someone once asked me, 'How long have y'all been doing bluegrass?'" Pop Lewis once said. "I told him, 'We've done it all along, but we didn't know it until someone told us that's what we were playing.'"
Mr. Lewis repeatedly crossed the nation, traveling millions of miles on the family's touring buses to performing dates, and recorded on more than 60 of The Lewis Family's albums.
The Lewis Family's TV show tape recorded in the WJBF studios would become one of the longest-running gospel music programs in American television history, broadcast weekly for 38 years from 1954 until 1992.
Their known television viewing fans included Elvis Presley, Mamie Eisenhower and Chet Atkins.
Mr. Lewis' death Tuesday came within less than a year of other gospel greats Jake Hess and Vestal Goodman.
Shortly after the news of his death, family members and friends began gathering at The Lewis Family's main homestead on Washington Highway in Lincolnton, where the family rehearsed countless times for its TV and stage shows and recording sessions.
His granddaughter, Sheri Easter, who appears regularly with her husband, Jeff, on Bill Gaither's Homecoming syndicated TV gospel concerts, recalled that her grandfather kept his sense of humor up until the end.
"Jeff and I were visiting him in the hospital three weeks ago, and Jeff started singing Never Grow Old, which is kind of slow," Mrs. Easter recalled.
"Pop piped up and said, 'Lord, that would put you to sleep!' We sang up-tempo songs for him after that."
The funeral is planned for 4 p.m. Thursday at Hephzibah Baptist Church outside Lincolnton. Visitation is from 6 to 9 p.m. today at Rees Funeral Home in Lincolnton. Mr. Lewis will be buried in the church graveyard beside his wife of 77 years, Pauline, who died Feb. 8, 2003.
