Country/bluegrass artist, and social media banjo sensation, Spencer Hatcher has seen some of his dreams come true, and suffered an unimaginable family tragedy, all within a few days time.
As a student in the Bluegrass, Old Time & Roots Music program at ETSU, Spencer impressed everyone with his banjo and guitar playing, as well as his good nature and friendly attitude. He likewise made clear that the business of music was his chief concern, as should it be for anyone be who plans to make a living in the industry.
After college, he created an online persona with a high yee haw quotient from his home in Virginia. He appeared as something of a ragged redneck banjo picker, filming videos of himself in cut off jeans, a cowboy hat, and boots, picking his five on a flatbed cart. YouTube and Tik Tok users responded right away, and many of his videos received thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even several million views. Of course it didn’t hurt that Hatcher is a tall, handsome, and extremely fit young man, something not lost on the thousands of young ladies who have watched him online.
With that sort of following, all sorts of offers started coming his way. When we spoke with Spencer in 2021 he mentioned that a couple of modeling agencies had reached out, but he demurred, wanting to stay in music.
Spencer’s background was in bluegrass, which he learned to play in his family’s band, The Hatcher Boys where at 12 he was pickin’ the banjo, with his dad on guitar and his brother Connor on bass. During college he did a stint on banjo with Nick Chandler & Delivered, so his bluegrass bona fides are solid.
But country music has always called to him, and singing country was beckoning, which surprised a lot of his ETSU buddies as he didn’t really sing at all back in school.
Last fall Hatcher signed with Stone Country Records in Nashville, and on July 21 he signed with the WME Agency for global representation, and released a new country single, When She Calls Me Cowboy, playing on the sex appeal his online presence had proved.
Then this past Sunday, his parent’s home in Rockingham County, VA was invaded by a knife-wielding man who stabbed Spencer’s mother, Holly Hatcher, to death. The man then attacked Spencer’s father who was able to escape. Things moved outside where Michael Hatcher was able to retrieve a hand gun from his vehicle and shoot the attacker dead.
Very few other details have been released, and the horror of this event is nearly incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t experienced it.
Spencer has canceled his tour dates in the immediate future to be with his father and family.
Prayers and best wishes to the entire Hatcher family in the wake of these tragic events.
