Free Mother's Day Screening of "Sprout Wings & Fly"

April 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Tommy Jarrell was an influential musician whose style incorporated expressive syncopation and sliding ornamentation. Although he made his living from road construction (operating a motor grader for the North Carolina Highway Department until his retirement in 1966), his technique and timbre continue to influence modern-day practitioners of Appalachian old-time music, particularly the Round Peak Style of the clawhammer banjo. He got his first fiddle with 10 dollars he received from his grandpa. That fiddle is now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Jarrell was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1982, when they awarded him a National Heritage Fellowship. In his later years, Jarrell lived in the small unincorporated community of Toast, North Carolina. His life is documented in two films by Les Blank, of which Sprout Wings & Fly is the first. PineCone and the NC Museum of History will screen this film on Mother’s Day – Sunday, May 8, at 3 p.m.

This touching tribute to Appalachian culture profiles Jarrell, who is originally from Mt. Airy, NC. His unpretentious folk wisdom is interlaced with family scenes and reminiscences, plus plenty of old-time music. Musician Alice Gerrard and Appalachian State English Professor Cece Conway will introduce the film as part of this program.

Thomas “Tommy” Jefferson Jarrell was born March 1, 1901 in Surry County, N.C. to Benjamin “Ben” Franklin Jarrell and Susan “Susie” Letisha (Amburn) Jarrell. He was born in his parents’ home at the foot of Fisher Peak and was raised in the Round Peak area of Surry County. He had one foster sister (a first cousin) who was older and 10 younger brothers and sisters. The family raised corn, buckwheat, rye, beans, cabbage,sugar cane, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, and apples to feed this large family. They also raised tobacco and owned cattle.

Jarrell would tell of how hard he had to work. He began plowing at the age of eight or nine and would work from sunup to sundown. He said his grandfather Rufus Jarrell never knew when to quit working and that he would try his best to find something for his family to do on a rainy day. The family had hired Bauga Cockerham to help on the farm, and he was the one who taught young Tommy his first tune on the banjo. Jarell was probably around seven years old when Cockerham taught him to play “Ol’ Reuben.” About a year later, Jarrell’s father bought him his first banjo. At age 13, he began to fiddle on his dad’s fiddle. His dad had bought the fiddle from Tony Lowe’s widow for five dollars. When Jarrell was 14, in 1915, he bought his own fiddle for 10 dollars from Huston Moore, having borrowed the money from Ed Ward. Jarrell still had this fiddle in the 1980s.

Jarrell grew up playing dances or “workings” all over Round Peak. Back then, neighbors had “workings” such as wood choppings, barn raisings, apple peelings, bean stringings and corn shuckings. There was always a dance at the end of these gatherings. Jarrell could sing to most of the tunes he played, but he would admit that he was a better fiddler than a singer.

The Round Peak area is well-known for its history of old-time music, and the Jarrell family contributed to that tradition. Jarrell was the community’s most famous old-time musician. His legendary fiddle playing brought him worldwide recognition. His father had also recorded numerous songs (with DaCosta Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters) and was considered one of the best musicians in his generation. Tommy was always eager to share his music with anyone. He enjoyed people and could entertain visitors for hours with his music and storytelling. His favorite stories were about relatives, neighbors and friends who grew up in Fisher’s Peak and in the Round Peak community.

Jarrell was an employee with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for 41 years, beginning work in April of 1925 and retiring in 1966. By 1975, he had recorded seven albums. He had traveled to many colleges and universities around the country to play. He had played at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. And many festivals around the country played host to him and his music. In 1982, Jarrell was selected as one of 15 master folk artists in the first National Heritage Fellowships of the National Endowment for the Arts. He received a certificate and monetary award at a ceremony at the annual American Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.

After Tommy became popular, people came from everywhere in the United States and from overseas, especially Europe, to see him and get him to teach them his style of fiddling. People ended up staying such a good length of time that a friend of his named Steve made a sign for him to put over his door that read “First Two Nights Free and After That $20 Per Night”.


The Music of the Carolinas series showcases some of today’s best home-grown North Carolina traditional artists, as well as the musical traditions of various cultures that call our state home today. PineCone continues to seek funding from donors and sponsors to keep this 13-year-old series running with the Museum of History. Learn more about how you can help, or call PineCone’s office at 919-664-8333 to find out how you can help!

The film screening will begin at 3 p.m. in the NC Museum of History’s Daniels Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public, and program notes will be provided. Large-print program notes will also be available.

About Alice Gerrard

Alice Gerrard is a singer and songwriter who has performed and advocated for old-time and bluegrass music for more than 25 years. She plays old-time fiddle, banjo, and guitar. Her recordings with Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and ’70s influenced a generation of women musicians from Laurie Lewis to the Judds. Besides the Harmony Sisters, she has also recorded and performed with Tommy Jarrell, Mike Seeger, Enoch Rutherford, Matokie Slaughter, the Strange Creek Singers, Otis Burris, 4 CDs with Tom Sauber and Brad Leftwich, and most recently a reissue of her album with Mike Seeger, Bowling Green. Her solo recordings on Copper Creek Records, Pieces of My Heart and Calling Me Home garnered rave reviews in Billboard and Country Music, among other publications. Gerrard’s song “Agate Hill” was an inspiration for novelist Lee Smith as she was writing her latest novel, On Agate Hill, and Alice’s most recent recording, The Road to Agate Hill, relates to that novel. Gerrard was the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke Univesity and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009. She is founder of the Old-Time Herald old-time music magazine and makes her home in Durham.

About Les Blank

Les Blank is a prize-winning independent filmmaker. Among his numerous awards are the British Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary, 1982; the Golden Gate Award “Best of Festival”, San Francisco Film Festival, 1982; Grand Award, Houston Film Festival, 1983; all for Burden of Dreams; Grand Prize, Melbourne Film Festival,1985, and Special Jury Award U.S. (Sundance) Film Festival, 1985, both for In Heaven There Is No Beer?;  Golden Hugo, Chicago Film Festival, 1968 for The Blues Accordin’ To Lightnin’ Hopkins; and “Best of Festival”, Sinking Creek (Nashville) 1996 for The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists, among many others. In 1990, Blank received the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award for outstanding lifetime achievement as an independent filmmaker, and in 2007, documentary he received the Edward MacDowell Medal. Blank’s work has been supported by The National Endowment For the Arts, The American Film Institute, The National Endowment For the Humanities, The Ford Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, PBS and the BBC.

Visit http://www.pinecone.org for complete program details.

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PineCone—the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music, is a private, nonprofit, charitable membership organization dedicated to preserving, presenting and promoting traditional music, dance and other folk performing arts.