Joe Thompson

Fiddler

Fiddler Joe Thompson thought that he might be the last survivor of a tradition that once flourished throughout much of the rural American South: the music of the African-American string band. Thompson grew up playing music in a traditional setting, helping to provide music for dances attended by both blacks and whites in his rural North Carolina community. Later in his life he was discovered by folk music researchers and received numerous opportunities to perform all over the United States, for he was almost one of a kind. Later still, he found another important opportunity: he began to pass his music on to a younger generation of African-American performers.

Descended from a long line of musicians through his father, John Arch Thompson, Joe Thompson was born on December 9, 1918, near the town of Mebane in north central North Carolina. The fiddle music his father played had both African and Anglo roots. During the era of slavery, African Americans were taught to play the fiddle, banjo, and other instruments so that they could provide entertainment at parties thrown by their masters. But the banjo was an African instrument to begin with, and the music of black fiddlers and string bands had a different flavor rhythmically from the white old-time country music alongside which it developed. The fiddle repertoire Joe Thompson played as an adult shared some pieces, such as "Soldier's Joy," with the white string band tradition, while other pieces, such as "Dona's Got a Ramblin' Mind," evoking a raccoon-hunting dog with a mind of its own, were unique to African-American musicians.

When Thompson was five, his father taught Joe's older brother Nate to play the banjo, but Joe was thought to be too young for lessons at the time. Undaunted, Joe Thompson took his father's fiddle down from its resting place and practiced it on the sly. Then he walked ten miles to pick up another fiddle from a relative who had offered it to him. It lacked strings, but he improvised them by pulling strands out of a screen door with a pair of pliers. John Arch Thompson relented and began to teach his son to play the fiddle. Soon the youngster was performing in family groups, sometimes standing in a doorway between two rooms, each filled with dancers.

Those dancers might be African Americans (who tended to call the event a frolic) or whites (who favored square dancing), but the music and even the ensembles crossed racial lines. "They wasn't that separate," Thompson told Grant Britt in an article published on the Creative Loafing Atlanta Web site. "We played with white boys. We still play with some of 'em." For many years, Thompson's most frequent performing partners were his brother Nate and a banjo-playing cousin, Odell. In the late 1930s Thompson was well enough known in North Carolina to be invited to play at dances all over the state.

The single event that did most to bring both black and white Southerners to the cities and hasten the decline of rural musical traditions was World War II, during which Thompson spent four years in the U.S. Army. He saw action at Normandy on D-Day, and met General George Patton on one occasion. By the time he returned to North Carolina, however, he found that musical fashions were changing. "Black people moved away from this kind of music, when people said it was white people's music, into the blues," Thompson recalled to Joe Killian of North Carolina's News & Record. "But then Elvis Presley played the blues and took a lot of that music from black people. Then people thought that was white people's music, too. That messes black people up."

Thompson farmed for a time and worked at the White Furniture Company factory, playing music in his spare time. What brought him to greater prominence was the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s. Thompson was discovered by music researcher Kip Lornell, who brought Thompson (and often Odell) to folk festivals and fiddlers' conventions. They appeared on the American Patchwork television series (1978-85) hosted by folklorist Alan Lomax, and performed as far afield as Brisbane, Australia. The climax of this phase of Thompson's career was a concert he and Odell performed in 1991 at Carnegie Hall. "I wish my daddy could have seen me play Carnegie Hall," Thompson told Killian. "There are a lot of places I wish he could have seen me play, but at Carnegie Hall—you know you're important when you play there." He also performed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. That year, he and Odell shared a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award. By this stage of his life Thompson had become a rarity, not only as a black fiddler but as one who spiced his music with square dance calls, something seldom heard in a traditional setting in the late twentieth century.

Although his music-making has not been systematically documented, Thompson made a number of recordings in the later part of his life. In 1989 Joe and Odell Thompson recorded Old-Time Music from the Carolina Piedmont for the Global Village Music label. Thompson's performances are included on the Smithsonian Institution anthologies Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia (1998) and Back Roads to Cold Mountain (2004). In 1999, well into his ninth decade of life, Thompson made his solo album debut with Family Tradition, released on the Rounder label. After Odell's death in 1994, Thompson was often accompanied by white banjoist Bob Carlin.

Thompson received several forms of recognition in the 1990s and 2000s. A 2004 television documentary, Steel Drivin' Man: The Life and Times of Joe Thompson, traced his long career, and in 2007 he received a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, which carried a $20,000 cash award. He was one of 12 honorees chosen from 259 nominations from around the United States. The nearly 90-year-old Thompson also had the satisfaction of finding a group of young musicians he could mentor: the African-American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops studied with Thompson and drew much of the music for their first release, Dona's Got a Ramblin' Mind, from his repertoire. As of 2007 Thompson continued to perform at local events around North Carolina's Alamance County.

For the Record …

Born December 9, 1918, in Orange County, NC; son of John Arch Thompson (a fiddler); married.

Began performing on fiddle at age five; performed with family group; worked as farmer and furniture maker after World War II; discovered by music researcher Kip Lornell, 1972; toured folk venues, 1970s-; appeared on American Patchwork television program; with Odell Thompson, recorded album Old-Time Music from the North Carolina Piedmont for Global Village Music label, 1989; with Odell Thompson, contributed to album Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia (Folkways, 1998); recorded album Family Tradition on Rounder label, 1999; recorded Back Roads to Cold Mountain, 2004.

Awards: North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, 1991; National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship, 2007.

Addresses: Record company—Rounder Records, One Rounder Way, Burlington, MA 01803.

Selected discography

(With Odell Thompson) Old-Time Music from the North Carolina Piedmont, Global Village Music, 1989.

(Contributor, with others) Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia, Folkways, 1998.

Family Tradition, Rounder, 1999.

(Contributor, with others) Back Roads to Cold Mountain, Folkways, 2004.

Sources

Periodicals

Herald-Sun (Durham, NC), July 3, 2007.

News & Record (Piedmont Triad, NC), October 8, 2004, p. D1.

Online

"Family Tradition" (review), Musical Traditions (UK), http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/thompson.htm (March 1, 2008).

"Fiddlin' with Tradition," Creative Loafing Atlanta, April 12, 2006, http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A60334 (March 1, 2008).

"Joe Thompson," All Music Guide,http://www.allmusic.com (March 1, 2008).

"Joe Thompson," Kennedy Center, http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/artist_detail.cfm?artist_id=THMPSNJOE (March 1, 2008).

"Joe Thompson, Mebane, NC," National Endowment for the Arts, http://www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/fellow.php?id=2007_10 (March 1, 2008).

—James M. Manheim