Putting The Music Out There with Fiddlin’ Earl White

No conversation about today's preservationists of Appalachian string band music would be complete unless it included the music and work of Fiddlin' Earl White. 

Well-respected as both an educator and a storyteller, White, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, started his music career dancing as a co-founder of the Green Grass Cloggers while still in college studying psychology.

He’s happy to share the story. “I hooked up with some people at East Carolina University who were starting a crisis intervention center called The Real House,” White recalls. “It was through that that I met my late friend.”

White is referring to Dudley Culp, another student at East Carolina, who sadly passed away in 2021. While attending the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Union Grove, North Carolina, Culp had learned clogging, the delightfully percussive Appalachian folk dance. “Nobody wanted to be around him because he appeared to be afflicted when he was trying to do it,” jokes White.

But as Culp improved, other students, including White, wanted to learn. “Eventually, it started to sound rhythmic and very percussive. Before you knew it, everybody was doing it.”

Inspired, White and his collegemates formed the Green Grass Cloggers in 1971. “I dropped out of college and became a full-time professional clogger,” says White, who wound up trading his dancing shoes for a fiddle. “It was during that time that I became intrigued by the musicians.”

VIDEO: 

Dance of the People (A Green Grass Cloggers documentary)

Drawn to the fiddle

White still remembers the first time he knew he wanted to play fiddle. The revelation came when he and his cloggers danced at a festival in Evergreen Valley, Maine. 

“It was one of the strangest shows we ever did,” he laughs. “It was Seals and Crofts, Jefferson Airplane, Blue Öyster Cult, and Alice Cooper—and the Green Grass Cloggers.”

The catalyst, for Earl White, was Papa John Creach. “He was sitting in the corner of the green room just playing the fiddle,” White remembers with awe. “I had seen Black violinists before, but I’d never laid eyes on a Black person playing the fiddle! It was very much a turning point in my life.” 

White acquired a fiddle and taught himself how to play. “I've never had a fiddle lesson,” he says, explaining that he simply copied the sounds he heard. “I think one of the advantages for me was spending a number of years dancing to the old-time music.”

When Fiddlin’ Earl met the Father of Bluegrass

Of the many adventures he’s had over his long career, Earl White will likely never forget meeting the Father of Bluegrass.

“The Green Grass Cloggers were dancing at the Angier Bluegrass Festival, and Bill Monroe walks over to me and says, ‘You know, you remind me a lot of this fella I used to play with many years ago.’ I found out that the person Bill Monroe referenced when he spoke to me was Arnold Schultz.”

White was deeply honored to be compared to an early Black bluegrass musician like the powerfully influential Schultz. Searching for others, he reached out to North Carolina old-time fiddler Joe Thompson.

“Joe was one of the people I went to visit,” remembers White. “I asked about other Black fiddlers that he might have played with in his community. His response was that they were pretty much all passed away, and that the young Black people did not really seem to be interested in the music.”

A negative association with old-time and bluegrass music might be to blame, White feels. “A lot of the Black community associate it with segregation and discrimination,” he observes sadly. The irony is that this hasn’t always been so. “It's obvious that, from an old-time perspective and early bluegrass perspective, Blacks and whites played together,” explains White, recalling his conversation with Bill Monroe.

The Virginia fiddle player feels that our music is for everyone. “In my opinion, the only way the Blacks could learn from the whites, or the whites learn from the Blacks, was that they were playing together,” he offers. 

He hasn’t forgotten Joe Thompson’s words about Black youth and string band music. “I don't think it's that they’re not interested in it,” White comments. “It's just not in their community.”

Putting the music out there

Accordingly, Earl White established a mission for himself to try to change this. “My goal has been to put the music out there in the community,” shares White, who has taught both Black and white students. “No matter what ethnicities they are, they [should] have a resource to learn about it.”

As White teaches his students how to play old-time music, he also teaches them the origins of the songs. “I do a lot of camps where I'm teaching a whole class of people, and I make a point of saying, ‘Whoever you learn the tune from, that’s who you should give credit to,’” he comments. “So many songs have come out of the Black community, and there was no credit given.”

VIDEO: 

The Earl White Stringband at Pre-Festival Old-Time Jam Camp, Minnesota Bluegrass Festival, August 2024

These days, White and his wife, Adrienne, who is also a musician, own and operate Big Indian Farm Artisan Bakery in Willis, VA. “My retirement went out the window,” he laughs. “Our goal is to build the infrastructure here on the farm and to do music camps.” Along with the organic bakery, White also hosts his own event, The Fiddler’s Jam, in Floyd, VA. “I said to myself, ‘If I had a camp at my place, all of those people who wanted to learn my style of fiddling would come to my camp!’”

And he was absolutely right. Fiddlin’ Earl White has hosted many jams at his lovely farm. “The fiddle has changed my life in so many different ways,” he says with passion. “I can't imagine not playing. One of the biggest effects it has had on me is seeing the impact that it has on other people. That just brings me so much joy.”

Visit Fiddlin’ Earl White at his farm at https://bigindianfarm.ecwid.com/ or at The Fiddler’s Jam at https://thefiddlersjam.com/.