Tommy Jarrell

by Craig HarrisThe old timey sounds of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina were preserved through the recordings of fiddler, banjo player and vocalist Tommy Jarrell. Although Jarrell didnt begin recording until his retirement from the North Carolina Highway Department in 1966, his nine albums of traditional banjo and fiddle tunes serve as a reminder of an influential old timey sound. One of ten children, Jarrell inherited his love of music from his father, Ben Jarrell, who made a few recordings with DaCosta Woltzs Southern Broadcasters in the late-1920s. Jarrell bought his first fiddle, at the age of eight, with money he made gambling. Learning most of his repertoire by 1925, Jarrell performed at unpaid, informal, house parties and contests. Jarrell was little known outside the local area, however, until the mid-1960s when his son, B.F., a disc jockey in North Carolina encouraged Alan Jabbour, then a member of the Hollow String String Band and later the director of the Library of Congress American Folklife Division, to visit the Jarrell home and record his father. Word of Jarrells authentic playing soon spread as he was visited by numerous urban traditional music enthusiasts. By the late-1960s, Jarrell was performing at folk festivals and concerts in the west and midwest. In 1982, Jarrell was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for The Arts. In addition to his albums, Jarrell was featured in several video aries including, Sprout Wings & Fly, produced by Les Blank, Cece Conway and Alice Gerrard, My Old Fiddle, produced by Les Blank and Legends Of Old Timey Music.