Wade Mainer | Country performer, 104

Wade Mainer, 104, a country-music pioneer who is credited with inventing the two-finger banjo-picking style that paved the way for the bluegrass era, died Monday at his home in Flint Township, Mich.

He was a member of late brother J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers, one of the most popular sibling duos of the 1930s. He made recordings for all the major labels of the day.

"Wade Mainer is the last of the old guard from the '20s and '30s to pass on," country and bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs said in an e-mail. "Mainer's Mountaineers was a huge group during that time. They influenced the Monroe Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Reno and Smiley, and countless other music groups from the South."

Born near Asheville, N.C., Mr. Mainer got his musical start in North Carolina's mountains and later rediscovered it in an industrial Michigan city. Concerned that country music was dying, he left the stage and the South in the early 1950s and moved to Flint, Mich., to work for General Motors. He played only in church but eventually stopped altogether, putting the banjo under his bed for four years.

Mr. Mainer returned to music after another musician persuaded the born-again Christian he could use his talents to honor God.

He is survived by his wife, Julia, whom he married in 1937 and who often performed with him. - AP