Tom McCarroll & Tammie
McCarroll-Burroughs
James T.
“Tom” McCarroll, born in 1928, worked in city maintenance in Lenoir City
for over 30 years, all the while playing fiddle, guitar, and banjo. His daughter Tammie, the only one of
Fiddlin' Jim McCarroll's 13 grandchildren to take up music, was making
45 rpm
records in junior high school, recording Rockabilly songs and some of
her own compositions, as well as playing with her grandfather’s band
throughout his life, later performing with her father in the “Bonnie
Lou and
Buster” show on WJHL-TV in Sevierville, and at RV rallies and parks
from
Florida to Ohio. In recent years they've been frequent guests at
the Laurel Theater and on WDVX, performed at the Festival
of American Fiddle Tunes in July 2004, and released a CD Generations.
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Roy
Harper
A retired brakeman
from Manchester, Tennessee,
Roy Harper has been performing old-time country music for more than
fifty
years. Roy has devoted his life to
continuing the
traditions of the style of country music he grew up listening to. Much of the inspiration for his songs comes
from the many years he spent working on the railroad.
Compared by his fans to Jimmy Rogers, Roy has developed quite a
following among people who find this style of music preferable to
modern
“country” music. “County music gradually
got citified, and I stayed the same.”
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The Epworth Old Harp Singers
The Epworth Old Harp
Singers host a
community
singing from The
New Harp of Columbia, a manual of sacred songs first published in Knoxville in 1848, related to the better known Sacred
Harp singing tradition and emerging from the singing school
movement once
widespread throughout New England and
the
South. Copies of the 2001 edition will
be available for use. |
Jake
Leg
Stompers
The Murfreesboro based Jake Leg Stompers
present Pre-War Roots Music on period instruments in lively, authentic
styles. Drawing on decades of historical research, the Jake Leg
Stompers design their musical arrangements not simply to replicate old
sonorities, but to evoke the moods and atmospheres of musical
experience before the dawn of the Second World War.
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Joseph
Decosimo & Allison Williams
Two of the most accomplished young musicians
working in old
time traditions of Tennessee, veterans of Bob Fulcher's Cumberland
Trail Folklife Project, present music of the
region.
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Mike and Marcia Bryant
 Mike
Bryant
has been playing old time fiddle for close to 30 years. For
22 years he played with the award winning old time band The New Dixie
Entertainers, playing all aound the country and at fiddle conventions.
Mike has taught fiddle classes at Swannanoa and Augusta and also enjoys
teaching individuals at home in Tennessee. Over the years Mike has won
many awards for fiddling, most notably at Clifftop, West Virginia. Mike
enjoys playing old time tunes from all over the south. He also has a
good repertory of blues and rags on the fiddle.
Mike will be joined by Marcia Bryant and Morgan Simmons of the New
Dixie Entertainers and Joseph and Kasey Decosimo. Mike was
featured prominently in a recent issue of the Old Time Herald and in
the video series Songs of Appalachia
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/nov/26/songs-appalachia-love-fiddle/
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The
Bearded
Rhythm
and
string band The Bearded took its first breath on the WDVX Blue
Plate Special in January 2005 although the original seeds were planted
years earlier on a front porch in Knoxville. A singer/songwriter and
multi-instrumentalist heralding from Northwest Florida, Kyle Campbell
was one of the founding members of the regionally popular rock band,
Medicine Wheel (1993-1999). He began his love for old time and country
blues while staying summers on the Yellow River with his grandparents.
His grandfather grew up on the same street as Hank Williams and knew
all the musicians along the river. Three days after arriving in
Knoxville in 2001 Kyle met Matt Morelock, a local DJ and banjo
player. Campbell and Morelock hit it off and soon found
themselves playing as a mandolin, banjo duet. Their CD A-No.1 was released in 2006.
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Jim
Turley
Junious Marion "Jim" Turley grew up in a forest about
30 miles south of Charleston,
West Virginia.
He started
playing the fiddle when he was 8 years old after his grandfather,
Francis
Marion, told him take a fiddle outside and mock the birds. A
local
fiddler that walked everyday over the gap into Ridgeview Hollar to sell
eggs
was his next influence. Fernandez Holston would stop by to play
with Jim
and his grandfather Francis on his way back over the gap. In the
words of
Jim, "We didn't know we were playing music, it was just something to
do." |
Danny
Gammon
While known
chiefly as a fiddler, Danny Gammon
is equally at home playing guitar and singing with a mellow authority.
He works
at refining his musical taste and broadening his musical experience. He
enjoys
playing music with people of many tastes, and strives to be inclusive
musicians
of any level of talent. He is the
primary organizer of Music Therapy, an unlikely group of musicians who
meet
twice monthly for the pure joy of playing with other musicians |
John
Alvis
& Friends
John Alvis and friends pay tribute to legendary fiddler Charlie
Acuff. Charlie can't be with us this year but his many musician
friends will carry his music as far as they can.
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The Lost
Marbles
The Lost Marbles are regulars
at the Knoxville Contra Dance.
Greg Horne fiddles with the Lost Marbles
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The
Mumbillies
Anybody
remember the Newly Evicted Expo City
Ramblers? The Honey Wagon Dip
Sticks? They're still here, the
ever-lovin' Mumbillies, wearing the same hats and the one name
they
couldn't shake. Alleged to be the
oldest
continuing band in Knoxville (by the second oldest, the HQ Band), the
Mumbillies have stuffed old time fiddle tunes and banjo riffs into
every crack
in the Laurel Theater's walls for the last quarter century
and more. |
.
Matt
Morelock,
Ian Thomas & Ferd Moyse
WDVX DJ Matt
Morelock plays clawhammer banjo,
ukelele, and
sings, joined by Ian Thomas and Ferd Moyse (of Hackensaw Boys fame)
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Informal
sessions People enjoying themselves in the basement of
the Laurel
 |
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