Tommy Jackson

American country fiddler and composer, born March 31, 1926 in Birmingham, Alabama and passed away on December 9, 1979. Inducted into the The National Fiddler Hall Of Fame (2013). The most prominent fiddle player of his time, Tommy Jackson came to Cincinnati in the late 1940s with the Pleasant Valley Boys, which included Jerry Byrd, Louie Innis, and Zeke Turner. They worked on radio and TV at WLW, and as session musicians at King Records Studio and Herzog Studio. In Nashville, he played on bluegrass sessions with Bill Monroe, with Jim and Jesse, with Mac Wiseman, and he and Art Stamper played twin fiddles on the Osborne Brothers’ first MGM recording session in 1956. During the square dance era, he recorded numerous fiddle tunes on Mercury and Dot Records, often accompanied by Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland on mandolin. Jackson was also part of Ray Price’s great Cherokee Cowboys band of the 1950s, where he originated the “single-string” style that has dominated country music fiddling ever since.