Ernest Thompson

b. 1892, near Winston-Salem, Forsythe Region, NEW YORK, USA, d. 1961, USA. Like a youngsters Thompson began employed in an area sawmill where, while just in his past due teenagers he was blinded within an incident. He was delivered to the NEW YORK State College for the Blind where he determined against following the abilities he was trained. Instead, he required to the street being a musician. Over time, he became adept on many equipment, notably your guitar, and he performed on the roads with dances and various other rural gatherings. Furthermore to his playing, Thompson sang in an exceedingly light tenor that bordered on falsetto. He constructed some music and he also rescued from obscurity many music that were typically handed on although just rarely on paper. In 1924 Thompson produced his initial records. A fairly flowery accounts in an area newspaper informed how he was noticed playing and performing on his entrance porch by William S. Parks, an professional with Columbia Information. Parks organized for Thompson to visit NY where he was immortalized with the edges he produced there. Both songs he documented on this initial session had been ‘The Wreck FROM THE Southern Aged ’97’ and ‘Are You From Dixie?’. This last melody may be the piece where Thompson is most beneficial appreciated. Although no basic starting point could be provided for what would become referred to as hillbilly music, it really is evident that recording program by Thompson from 28 Apr 1924 is normally among a small number of extremely early records from the genre. Having said that, neither these Thompson edges nor indeed the nearly 40 edges he trim for Columbia that calendar year are really hillbilly. Or simply it could be better to state that these were not quite the actual record companies made a decision to label as hillbilly music. Like a lot of his nation and hill music comrades on the highway in those years, Thompson’s repertoire ranged broadly and incorporated the favorite songs of your day, including hangovers through the drawing space ballads of that time period past and display tunes of today’s.