The video encyclopedia of old geezer fiddlers

This compendium of videos was originally envisioned to be a resource for my students. My intent is to visually show the wide variety of bowing styles represented in old time music. For that reason, I have chosen to focus on vintage video footage and not to dive into the wealth of audio resources available on the internet.

A–B–C–D–E–F–G–H–I–J–K–L–M–N–O–P–Q–R–S–T–U–V–W–X–Y–Z

Click on the letters to move to that section of the encyclopedia

I have also chosen not to incorporate modern fiddlers into this list; to do so would add thousands of fiddlers to the list, a project that I don’t have capacity for. To keep this encyclopedia’s complexity at a manageable level, I’ve focused on fiddlers who learned their music from their families and communities rather than within the context of the old time music revival. That means that the fiddlers in this encyclopedia are not currently promoting themselves, or even alive in most cases.

One problem with these subjective lines in the sand is that women fiddlers and fiddlers of color were systematically left out by those documenting southern Appalachian music and are thus severely under-represented on the internet within this genre.

This encyclopedia, by nature, will be incomplete. If you know of any videos that should be included here please let me know.

It’s meant to be a learning resource. I hope you find it useful.

Additional resources on women and people of color in old time music:

Benjamin Hunter’s excellent presentation “Black Music. Full Stop.”