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| Carthy Sisco Lee Stripling Jim Ketterman Jim Evans Glenn Berry Harry Johnson Jeff Anderson Marilyn Scott Gil Kiesecker Floyd Engstrom Stuart Williams Vivian Williams Author: Brid NowlanPhotographer: Doug PlummerAbout the projectExhibit ScheduleWA State Old Time Fiddlers Association Home PageArchivesHome
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When Jim was
growing up in Elkins, West Virginia, in the 1940s fiddle music was hard to find: "You
had to look for it; it would be in families. You’d go up the hollow and they’d
open up the house and get the furniture out and dance on the floor." In town,
fiddlers played for cakewalks at fundraising events. Participants bought tickets then
gathered in a circle around numbers pasted on the floor. When the fiddler struck up a tune
they would walk or dance around until the music stopped. Then "you’d stop and
look down and see I’m on number 19. There’d be a drawing and if you drew number
19 you’d get the pie or cake." Jim was fortunate to be born into a family with
music to share. He learned his first guitar chords from his mother and, "Picked music
up over the course of being associated with people playing." He left Elkins to join the Air Force and lived in many parts of the United States, playing music wherever he was. Jim is now an important figure in his local district of the old-time fiddlers association, where his straight-forward, southern style fiddling is much appreciated, as is his willingness to back up other fiddlers on the guitar and teach fiddle to newcomers.
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