N.C. Thurman

N.C. THURMAN

N.C. Thurman is a keyboard player and member of Shoals-based band The Decoys. A native of Pulaski, Tennessee, he started taking piano lessons at age eight. In the early 1990s, Thurman met guitarist Kelvin Holly in Huntsville, Alabama, which led to him sitting in with Holly and fellow Decoys member Scott Boyer at one of Boyer’s Huntsville-area solo gigs. Eventually, Holly and Boyer invited Thurman to join The Decoys, and he relocated to the Shoals, where he has lived and worked ever since.

In addition to playing keyboards with the group, Thurman initiated a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Boyer (who died in 2018). The pair composed more than five dozen songs together over the years, including “Silence Ain’t Golden Anymore,” which was recorded by Gregg Allman in 1997. Thurman has also written with such Shoals-music legends as Donnie Fritts and Spooner Oldham, and has worked as a session musician for local studios such as FAME, where he and The Decoys recorded their album Shot from the Saddle in 2001.