Blind since early childhood, fiddler and singer Gilliam Banmon (G.B.) Grayson was born in Ashe County, North Carolina. He worked as a traveling musician throughout the mountains of the southern Appalachians, playing at fairs, barn dances, and picnics. He was also entered and frequently won, many fiddle conventions in the region. G.B. Grayson used music to support his wife and six children. In search of bills and coins, he showcased his nasal vocals and his high-lonesome fiddling on street corners, in storefronts, and in roadhouses. Grayson met Henry Whitter at a fiddlers' convention in Mountain City, Tennessee in 1927. The two teamed up and recorded 40 songs over a three year period. Their recording of "Handsome Molly" sold over 50,000 copies! The recordings made by G.B. Grayson & Henry Whitter had a tremendous effect on country music and still does. The songs they recorded during those short three years before Grayson's death in an automobile accident are considered classics: "Cluck Old Hen," "Tom Dooley," "Rose Conley", "Lee Highway Blues" and "Omie Wise", to name a few. Perhaps the longest-lasting, "Tom Dooley" was a song dear to Grayson's heart -- his grand uncle, a North Carolina sheriff, arrested Tom Dooley himself. Grayson died in 1930 in an automobile accident. He had hitched a ride and the car was full. He put his Japanese fiddle in the car and he stood outside on the running board. Rounding a curve near Damascus, Virginia, the car struck a log truck head on and Grayson was hurled to the ground and killed.
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