Bellamy Brothers’ love for Ma still flows strong
Rick Barbare  Contributing Writer

Ma Bellamy didn’t raise her boys to be cowboys. Spry and alert at 82, Frances Bellamy, the regal matriarch of the family group that still ranches the Pasco County Darby land homesteaded by Abraham Bellamy in the 1870s, readily recalls how she advised sons Howard and David.

“I told them only two things; first was to finish school. The second was to keep playing their music. That’s all.”

The boys did both, the latter very well. So much so that Howard and David, rather “The Bellamy Brothers,” went on to become one of popular music’s most successful and honored duos of all time, scoring numerous
country Top 10s in the United States, even more in Europe, plus a couple of crossover hits, and remain today much sought after performers around the world.

Let Your Love Flow, Redneck Girl, If I Told You You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me) and David’s Spiders & Snakes
(penned in what is now the group’s on-premises recording studio) still get extensive airing and ensure a turnout.
Spiders and Snakes was subsequently recorded by  Jim Stafford and
became a Number One hit and the 16th most popular song on the American

 “We lived in Atlanta and Los Angeles – most of our hits were recorded
in LA – but just as soon as we could afford to we moved back. And Ma                                                                    

held the fort down. To this day she still reviews every contract.”

“It’s just something I did,” answered Ma Bellamy after she was asked to
compare ranch management with deciphering a booking in (say) Austria.
“There are things around a ranch you don’t like to do, but you put your
head down and do them anyway. Same with entertainment contacts. Nothing
magical about it. Just do it.”

Despite being on a first name basis with the greats and (unfortunately)
lates of Country Music (she admits to being partial to Merle Haggard)
and positively aglow about the Brothers’ multi-Grammy-nominated
careers, Ma Bellamy is equally as proud of her own accomplishments,
especially her 25 years with Pasco County Schools.

When (oldest daughter) Ginger and Howard were starting school, she                                                              volunteered to drive the bus, because “I didn’t want just anybody
driving my kids around.” Soon she was also working the cafeteria line.
“I am very proud of every minute I worked in the school system. I
enjoyed those kids, not only mine but all the others. They were all
great kids.”

“She was a card, always a smile,” remembers FFB Director of Field
Services Ray Crawford, a Pasco High alumnus. “The nicest, sweetest
woman you’ll ever meet.”

Frances grew up picking strawberries in the Turkey Creek area of
Hillsborough, moved to Darby when her father took a ranch foreman job
in 1938, and then married Homer Bellamy in 1941.

And although a long way from the high decibel, holler-down-the-lane
days of pre-war Pasco, this Queen Mother of a clan that includes seven
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren still has her feet planted
firmly in the ground, largely unaffected by the fame and acclaim her
boys bestowed on the family name.

Indeed, the Bellamy Brothers, noted for their laid-back easy style, are
off-stage exactly that, readily high-fiving the successful sale of a
cutting horse and a few minutes later equally excited about another
booking for a second generation of touring Bellamy brothers, Jesse and
Noah, David’s sons.

“We’re a close-knit, Low-Country family,” explains Ma, referring to
their genteel South Carolina heritage. “We were raised to try to be
good to everybody and we raise ours to do the same.”

As busy as ever, the Bellamy Brothers play up to 180 ‘gigs’ a year,
from the windswept Faeroe Islands near the Arctic Circle to lush and
balmy Tahiti.

“We’re just old road dogs,” explained Howard of their Travel
Channel-like schedule. And, unless you’re in Latvia or Bora-Bora, which
are (along with Switzerland) among the tour stops in ’07, you can catch
the popular duo in any number of Florida venues in the next few months,
or even cruise the Caribbean with them.

For times and dates, plus more background on the Bellamys, including                                                                  Jesse and Noah’s flourishing careers, go to http://www.bellamybrothers.com.