Tommy Jarrell-My Old Fiddle Doco

[darylcrisp]

though not mandolin content, it is a neat video with historical ties.
neat to see Tommy play a real strat at the Smithsonian. hope you enjoy this for something a little different, and if it belongs elsewhere mods feel free to move it.

(Tommy is well known to us claw hammer banjo players)

[barney 59]

I was lucky enough to see Tommy Jarrell perform live several times. Once at some festival in Virginia Tommy Jarrell, Richard Green and Kenny Baker trading tunes and corn liquor in the parking lot starting in the early evening and playing pretty much until dawn. The drunker they got the better they got and late when the the woman and children were no longer present Tommy could get pretty raunchy with some of the lyrics to his tunes! He was certainly a fine fiddler and it's interesting how that Stradivarius violin in Tommy's hands sounds just like a fiddle!

[Timbofood]

Thanks Darryl! Memories of a long past trip with a couple of friends to see him at Kent State back around '77, I think.

[Paul Busman]

though not mandolin content, it is a neat video with historical ties.
neat to see Tommy play a real strat at the Smithsonian. Ji

Jimi Hendrix played a Strat(ocaster). Tommy is playing a Strad(ivarious). Great video.
Tommy makes a great point when he plays the Strad-- he said he wouldn't sell his old $10 for $10,000. It's not always the high end fancy instrument that makes the difference.

[Dave Reiner]

I have fond memories of meeting Tommy at his house in Mt. Airy when I was doing research for my book, "Oldtime Fiddling Across America." He made Pete Anick (my co-author) and me play him a tune first to establish that we were actually fiddlers :-). Then we stayed the rest of the day, asking questions and listening to his playing and singing. Benny Jarrell fried up some chicken for lunch, and we chatted about his more modern directions compared to his dad, Tommy.

[darylcrisp]

Jimi Hendrix played a Strat(ocaster). Tommy is playing a Strad(ivarious). Great video.
Tommy makes a great point when he plays the Strad-- he said he wouldn't sell his old $10 for $10,000. It's not always the high end fancy instrument that makes the difference.

oops, slip of the keyboard on that one. i know better, just wasn't paying attention

and that was interesting what Tommy said about the strad vs his and the cost and all.

makes me feel on the silly side, having been in mandolin slightly over a year and gone thru 4 or 5 mandolins-all very good mandolins. back in the day folks got something and that was that-a part of the time they lived in.


i wonder if the strad would have sounded better if it had been played a lot before Tommy got hands on with it-it definitely sounded a little tight-i would guess these are not played often at the museum.
d

[Tobin]

So what's the deal with the copper plate on the fingerboard of his fiddle (the Civil war one)? Is it just a way to keep it running and prevent wear without replacing the board? Or was it done to create a different tone? As I recall from the video, it was already on there when he bought it, but I'm curious if anyone knows the backstory on it. Don't see too many fiddles out there with a copper wrap on the board.

Looks like his banjo had something similar?

[darylcrisp]

So what's the deal with the copper plate on the fingerboard of his fiddle (the Civil war one)? Is it just a way to keep it running and prevent wear without replacing the board? Or was it done to create a different tone? As I recall from the video, it was already on there when he bought it, but I'm curious if anyone knows the backstory on it. Don't see too many fiddles out there with a copper wrap on the board.

Looks like his banjo had something similar?

i noticed that on the fiddle as well. don't have a clue-will prod some of the folks on the BHO as there are people from Tommy's region and style of play, and they may know the story on the fiddle overlay.

the banjo overlay(usually to the 5th or 7th fret) is popular for some styles/regions of clawhammer. i've heard different stories of why it came about, all of them make sense but i don't know the exact real reason.
a lot of folks from that area do a lot of slides on the banjo, and that brass(or copper) plate definitely helps and gives a different tone flavor than not having it there.

[darylcrisp]

here is what I got from the BHO concerning the copper clad fiddle:



That fiddle belonged to famed Carroll County fiddler Zach Payne (1845-1929)...a fifer in the Army of Northern Virginia. That fiddle has a patch where it was hit by a mini-ball during the Civil War, and I was told the reason for the cooper sheet was a simple repair to cover the beat up fingerboard without having to replace it...one of my all time favorite fiddle tunes is Payne's "Devil in the Strawstack" which Tommy learned from Mr. Payne in the early 20's or thereabouts...

Edited by - RG on 9/1/2015 7:40 PM

the full thread if you want it:
http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/308348