Charlie Poole: North Carolina Rambler

Director George Goehl and Straight Six Films have started production on North Carolina Rambler: The Legend of Charlie Poole. The feature-length documentary will explore the life and music of old-time banjo player and singer Charlie Poole (1892-1931). Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers were one of the most exciting and influential hillbilly bands of the 1920s. A product of the industrialized South, Poole created a unique fusion, melding mountain ballads and fiddle tunes with classical banjo picking, minstrel songs, Tin Pan Alley, and ragtime syncopation. His and the Ramblers’ intricate picking patterns and walking arpeggios heavily influenced the creation of bluegrass music.Poole’s also had a dramatic impact as a banjo player. His sophisticated three-finger melodic banjo style helped transform the instrument’s role in southern white music as often a comedic prop to an integral fixture in country and bluegrass music. Poole’s innovative three-finger banjo style laid the foundation for banjo greats and fellow North Carolinians Don Reno and Earl Scruggs.Poole was not only a trailblazer musically. He also embodied the beginning of an archetype in country music--the restless rambler whose hard drinking and hard living created great legend. Before Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams, there was Charlie Poole. Poole’s wanderlust took him through the North Carolina Piedmont, up into the Virginias and Ohio and as far west as Montana and as far north as Canada. When heading out on “tour” he would simply start walking down the road and when someone stopped and asked where he was going, he’d reply, “Wherever you are!” and jump in. He was a powerful entertainer who was influenced by the vaudeville touring companies that came through North Carolina. During his performances, it was common for Poole to jump over a chair and land standing on his hands or do cartwheels across the stage. It seems that everyone who came in contact with Poole had a story to tell. Many of these stories involve his affection for moonshine. His heavy use of alcohol became more severe as his career waned during the Depression, eventually indulging in an 18-day drinking binge that took his life.Goehl’s documentary, North Carolina Rambler: The Legend of Charlie Poole, will interweave rare historical footage, archival photographs, graphic animation, and interviews with musicians and music scholars to tell the story of one of the most influential and yet unheralded pioneers of country music.