EDDIE BOND
Fries, Virgina
Old Time Fiddle and Banjo
One of the most respected old-time fiddlers in the Blue Ridge Mountain region, Eddie Bond grew up in a family where both his maternal and paternal forbears were steeped in old-time music traditions. Eddie considered his first and most important musical influences were his father's parents, both fine singers and guitarists. He also spent a great deal of time with his mother's mother, Granny Widner, who played guitar and sung in a style reminiscent of the Carter Family. Her brother, Leon Hill, was a singer who headed a band called the Hillside Boys.
Clawhammer banjo playing was a tradition both sides of his family shared. Granny Widner was delighted when Eddie began playing in that style because her mother, Dora Williams, had been a banjoist. And when Eddie showed his new old-time banjo skills to Grandpa Bond, he was told that he sounded like his banjo-playing great-grandpa, Lee Bond. Grandma Bond's father, Coy Cox, was also a banjoist. Eddie's music was also influenced by his growing up in one of the most influential musical communities in America, Fries, Virginia, a village of 600 perched on a hillside overlooking a sweeping bend and great cascade of the New River. Here the fiddle and banjo are still welded in a Virginia dance tradition that reaches back some 300 years. Like many other old-time musicians from this region, he is skilled in playing both old-time banjo and fiddle music and he also has considerable skills with guitar and autoharp.
Eddie got his start as a paid performer at age 3, earning tossed quarters by dancing to the music of Great-Uncle Leon and his band, a group which at times included autoharpist Kilby Snow and fiddler Leake Caudill. Today Eddie is the fiddler and lead singer in the Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters, among the most respected of Virginia's old-time string bands, and one heard often at the Virginia governor's mansion. Eddie is also a member of The Round Knob Singers, an a cappella gospel quartet located in Austinville, a few miles north of the Crooked Road in Carroll County.
Links
http://www.virginiafolklife.org/recordings/eddiebond/
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