Jimmy Capps titled his autobiography “The Man in Back,” a reference to his decades as a session guitarist on some of country music’s biggest hits.
Soon, Capps will also be known as the man on the highway sign along a stretch of Interstate 40 near where he grew up in Johnston County.
The section of I-40 where it crosses I-95 near Benson will be christened Jimmy Capps Highway, the state Board of Transportation decided Thursday.
Capps grew up in Benson, where he listened to the Grand Ole Opry and Chet Atkins with members of the Carter Family on the radio as a boy. He picked up the guitar at age 12 and played on local radio shows as a teenager before heading to Nashville in the late 1950s.
Capps made his debut at the Opry in 1958 with the Louvin Brothers and was a member of the house band of the Grand Ole Opry from 1967 until just before he died in 2020 at age 81.
Capps was inducted into the N.C. Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville . But he would never have imagined having a highway named for him, his wife, Michele Capps, told transportation board members Thursday.