Darby & Tarlton

Singer Tom Darby and slide guitarist Jimmie Tarlton were not only legendary bluesmen, but also pioneers of country music. Although they were only together for a brief time during the late 1920s and early '30s, they popularized the steel slide guitar in the genre and exerted a heavy influence on the Allen Brothers and the Delmore Brothers. Tarlton was born in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, the son of sharecroppers. His parents taught him traditional songs and the fretless banjo, and by age 12, he was learning to play the slide guitar from the Black musicians he encounte...