Arthur Smith, nationally known for writing and recording Dueling Banjos and Guitar Boogie, has been an important part of the Charlotte-area music scene from the early days of field recording up to the present. Arthur Smith Arthur Smith
Born April 1, 1921, Arthur Smith (no relation to Fiddling Arthur Smith) grew up in the cotton mill town of Kershaw, South Carolina, some sixty miles south of Charlotte. His father worked as a loom fixer in the Springs Mills plant there and in his spare time directed the town's brass band, a familiar part of village life in many Southern mill communities then. Arthur's first instrument was trumpet, and he still counts jazzmen Louis Armstrong, Stephane Grappelli, and Django Reinhart among his major influences. Soon he picked up fiddle and guitar and before long, he remembers, "could get around on most any stringed instrument."
Mill children in the 1920s went to work early. Before Arthur Smith reached his teens he had a job in the Springs card room. Music offered a welcome alternative to mill labor, and at thirteen Smith won his first regular spot on radio. The Arthur Smith Quartet didn't play stringband music at first: they played Dixieland jazz. In a 1977 article in Bluegrass Unlimited, Smith told interviewer Don Rhodes: We nearly starved to death until one day we changed our style: we had been doing a daily radio show over WSPA Radio in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as the Arthur Smith Quartet. One Friday we threw down our trumpet, clarinet, and trombone and picked up the fiddle, accordian, and guitar. . . The next Monday we came back on the radio program as Arthur Smith and the Carolina Crackerjacks Smith recalls the Crackerjacks made their first records at an RCA Victor field session at the Andrew Jackson Hotel in Rock Hill, South Carolina: "Our best song from that was one called Going Back to Old Carolina. RCA session sheets indicate that the date was September 29, 1938.
Wayne lives in Virginia, on 'The Crooked Road'. We hope to spend some time there this summer.
He's the only player I've seen who finger-picks a mando.
Another fascinating player, who I met at the Mountain View Dulcimer/Bluegrass festival last year is Bing Futch. If you met him on the street, you'd never expect he could play like he does.
We were in an rv site next to his while he was there teaching and performing at the festival. He rode by on his bike one evening and stopped to talk when he saw the dulcimer I won in a raffle. It is a 6-string bass dulcimer. Bing put some pretty impressive blues tunes on my dulcimer while he was at our site.
Here Bing Futch & Stephen Seifert, two of the best.
Wayne lives in Virginia, on 'The Crooked Road'. We hope to spend some time there this summer.
He's the only player I've seen who finger-picks a mando.
Another fascinating player, who I met at the Mountain View Dulcimer/Bluegrass festival last year is Bing Futch. If you met him on the street, you'd never expect he could play like he does.
We were in an rv site next to his while he was there teaching and performing at the festival. He rode by on his bike one evening and stopped to talk when he saw the dulcimer I won in a raffle. It is a 6-string bass dulcimer. Bing put some pretty impressive blues tunes on my dulcimer while he was at our site.
Here Bing Futch & Stephen Seifert, two of the best.
My sister and her husband here in Cleveland have traveled Texas, the South and Southeast the last few years going to every bluegrass festival they can. I don't care much for that type music, but they would probably recognize every name you mentioned. They are members of: http://www.texasbluegrassas...ion.com/mission.html
Last one I remember them going to was in Kemah or League City, but they have been to Ga, Fla, NC, Tenn, Ala, and Ky festivals.
