Tommy Jarrell

The 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 didn't 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 Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters in the late 1920s. Jarrell bought his first...