Tommy Jarrell
Tommy Jarrell (Thomas Jefferson Jarrell, 1901–1985) was an American old-time fiddler, clawhammer banjoist, and singer from the Round Peak community near Mount Airy, North Carolina. His father, Ben Jarrell, was a fiddler for DaCosta Woltz's Southern Broadcasters. He spent 41 years working as a state road grader operator for the North Carolina Highway Department. Following his retirement in 1966, he was tracked by ethnomusicologists and recorded a series of definitive archival albums for County Records, becoming a central figure of the mid-century American folk revival. Jarrell was featured in Les Blank’s documentary films Sprout Wings and Fly (1983), received the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award in 1981, and was honored as part of the inaugural class of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) National Heritage Fellows in 1982.
In the newsletter
- No. 28 January 2002