Pioneer Artist

Charles Cleveland Poole acquired a love of banjo music before he reached his teens learning to play on a gourd banjo that he made for himself. In the summer of 1925 Poole boldly decided to try to get an audition with a major record company in New York City. Frank Walker, the recording director for Columbia Records, decided to give Poole’s band, dubbed the North Carolina Ramblers, a chance to record. Poole's snappy singing style and his sharp 3-finger banjo picking along with the tight fiddle work of Rorer and Woodlieff's smooth guitar runs made the band's sound very distinctive and catchy. In the spring on 1931 Poole received a contract from a Hollywood studio to bring his band to California to play back-up in a movie. Poole suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 39. In his short career had won many new fans to rural traditional music. His colorful personality and antics made him a legend in his own time and that legend continues to this day.

Published in 2012

Charlie Poole

Jim Shumate, a native of Wilkes County, North Carolina, made his name as a young fiddler in the 1940s playing with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and later with Lester Flatt and Earl Scrugg’s Foggy Mountain Boys. As a fiddler, Shumate pioneered innovations that are still admired and studied by musicians today.

Published in 2011

Jim Shumate

Born in Bristol, TN in 1895, Clarence “Tom” Ashley was an American clawhammer banjo player, guitarist and singer whose musical career began at the early age of sixteen. He met Doc Walsh and formed the Carolina Tar Heels who recorded many hit albums of the 1930s including his famous song “The Coo-Coo Bird”. He recorded two albums with Folkways Records and spent the last years of his life playing internationally at folk music concerts. Ashley’s appearances included venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.

Published in 2010

Clarence "Tom" Ashley

Ola Belle Reed was born August 16, 1916 in a humble setting along the New River Valley of North Carolina. Due to the depression her family was forced to move to Chester County, PA where jobs were more available. Influenced by her family, she formed one of the first “hillbilly” bands, The North Carolina Ridge Runners, in the Delaware-Maryland area. She and her brother formed The New River Boys until he retired. After that she continued performing, joined by her husband and son. Additionally, she wrote or co-wrote over 200 songs still heard today.

Published in 2009

Ola Belle Reed

The original Carter Family, consisting of A. P. Carter, Sara Doughtery, and A. P.’s sister-in-law, Mother Maybelle Addington Carter from Virginia, was one of the most influential groups in mountain music, switching emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals. They made their songs part of the standard country music repertoire and developed a particular guitar style that is used as a building block, taken to a higher technical level by musicians even today.

Published in 2008

The Carter Family

John Carson was born near Fannin County, Georgia in 1868. He learned to play the fiddle at a young age and began performing in the streets for tips. In 1914, while working in a textile mill, workers of the mill went on strike. During the strike he began playing and selling songs in the streets of North Atlanta. On April 1, 1913, Carson performed at the first annual "Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention" coming in fourth. Over the years he was considered “Champion Fiddler of George” seven times and acquired the “Fiddlin’” part of his name by the governor of Tennessee. In September 1922, Carson made his radio debut at the Atlanta Journal radio station WSB and in June 1923, Carson made his recording debut in an empty building on Nassau Street in Atlanta. He cut two sides to the record, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going To Crow." This record is considered to be the first country song recorded with vocals and lyrics. Carson recorded almost 150 songs between 1923 and 1931. He wrote more than 150 songs in his life, but only nine were ever copyrighted.

Published in 2019

Fiddlin’ John Carson

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