Misplaced Pages

Uncle Homer Walker

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
John "Uncle" Homer Walker
Background information
BornFebruary 15, 1898 or c. 1904
Mercer County, West Virginia, U.S.
OriginUnited States
DiedJanuary 4, 1980
Princeton, West Virginia, U.S.
GenresOld-time music
Appalachian music
OccupationMusician
InstrumentBanjo
Musical artist

John "Uncle" Homer Walker (February 15, 1898 or c. 1904 – January 4, 1980) was an American Appalachian banjo player who was popular during the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to his death, he was one of the last musicians to practice the old-time Appalachian style.

Walker was born in Mercer County, West Virginia into a musical family: his father, a sharecropper, was a banjo player, two sisters learned the mandolin and guitar, and Walker's two brothers played guitar. His grandfather, himself a former slave, taught Walker the clawhammer banjo playing style, once a fairly common pre-blues component found in the Appalachian Mountains region. In the 1920s, Walker began performing, sometimes accompanied by a mandolin or fiddle player, at square dances, presenting a repertoire of old-time black spirituals and folk tunes passed along to him from his grandfather like "Steal Away", "Cripple Creek", "John Henry", and "Old Joe Clark". He lived most of his adult life in Glen Lyn working as a laborer and farmhand.

During the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s, Walker appeared at numerous folk festivals such as John Henry Folk Festival, the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, the Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife. Only during his appearances at these festivals, Walker claimed, did he first start incorporating the blues into his repertoire. In 1977, Walker was the subject of the documentary film Banjo Man, directed by Joseph Vinikow and Reuben Chodosh and narrated by bluesman Taj Mahal.

He died in Princeton, West Virginia. Walker's recordings are featured on the compilation albums Virginia Traditions - Non-Blues Secular Black Music and Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia.

References

  1. ^ Kalra, Ajay. "John "Uncle" Homer Walker" (PDF). community.berea.edu. Retrieved January 30, 2016.
  2. ^ Keller, Tim. "Uncle Homer Walker". timkellerphotography.com. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  3. "January 4, 1980: Musician John Homer Walker Dies in Princeton". wvpublic.org. Archived from the original on January 4, 2019. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  4. "Uncle Homer Walker". wvencyclopedia.org. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  5. "BANJO MAN". loc.gov. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  6. Leggett, Steve. "Uncle Homer Walker - Biography". allmusic.com. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
Categories: