Charles Thomas Bowman made his first wax cylinder recording of "Turkey in the Straw" for a neighbor in 1908....at the age of 19! When he and his brothers played at local dances and events, they had to wrap their instruments in newspapers for lack of cases!

• Banjo player and singer Charlie Poole lived always on the wild side in his short 39 years. After a significant run of moonshine liquor during Prohibition, he bought himself what was then a very expensive Orpheum #3 Special 5 string banjo.

A remarkably tragic life for guitarist/singer John Dilleshaw. Of his three sons and one daughter, all except the oldest John(JR) took their own lives, including his wife Opal. The daughter (Dorothy) was first; then second son, Richard; then Opal; then youngest son Bill.

• The premier picker and singer of North Georgia was not born blind. Rather, while an infant, George Riley Puckett was blinded when a sugar of lead solution was accidentally used to treat a minor eye ailment!
  
  
• Fiddler Melgie Ward, who played with brothers Albert(musical saw) and Vander Everidge(guitar) of the South Georgia Highballers, was known for his remarkably heavy foot-tapping at their only recording session when they made just six recordings for Okeh in the 1920s.
  
  
• The Tenneva Ramblers, after stumbling onto the Bristol Sessions in 1927, ditched a young tenor banjo player named Jimmie Rodgers, who wanted his name to be more of a prominent part of the group name. They went on to record classic versions of "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train I Ever Saw" without him!
  
  
• Brilliant fiddler Allen Sisson was from Ducktown in southeastern Tennessee, which is near the towns of Dogtown and Turtletown!
  
  
  

Kingsport, Tennesee in the 1920's was the site of a planned Eastman Kodak city and became know as the "Magic City", where fiddler John Dykes Magic City Trio originated.

• The local newspapers and writers cast wonderful fiddler Blind Bill Day from Kentucky, as "Jilson Setters, the Singing Fiddler of Lost Hope Hollow."
  
  

Fiddlin' Jimmy Mccarroll of the Roane County Ramblers used "Dill Pickles Rag" as the basis for his "Everybody Two-Step"....but there was already a very popular melody and song by that name first recorded by Billy Murray and the American Quartet in 1912.

• From Calhoun, Georgia came half-Cherokee Andrew and son Jim Baxter who were outstanding African-American musicians capable of playing in a variety of styles. The Georgia Yellow Hammers in August 1927, got them to help in a recording session in Charlotte. Andrew and Jim were forced to ride in a seperate car, and did do some recordings but the racist industry never credited them. It is commonly believed in many current circles that the fiddler in the Yellow Hammers's "G Rag" is indeed Andrew Baxter.
  
  

• A little known fact is that Vermont fiddlers are actually direct descendants of the great Southern fiddlers! I stumbled upon this AMAZING FACT while editing old photographs! Have a look for yourself HERE!