Tommy Malboeuf: The Life of a Carolina Fiddler

Tommy Malboeuf was adopted as a child and grew up in Troutman, North Carolina. He enlisted in the Navy in the early 1950s and found work surveying and operating heavy equipment. He also found a passion for bluegrass fiddling and performed and recorded with various bands. In the late 1990s, he began teaching fiddle and continued to perform as a fiddler, filling in for local bands and recording cuts. His extensive repertoire includes fiddle contest wins, band recordings, local jam field recordings, and songs recorded for students.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 277 pages
Publication date: 11 August 2022
Publisher: McFarland & Co Inc

Tommy Malboeuf, born in 1932, was adopted as a child from the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, North Carolina. He grew up in Troutman, North Carolina, before enlisting in the Navy in the early 1950s. After his military service, Tommy found occasional work surveying and operating heavy equipment, as well as a personal passion in bluegrass fiddling.

He performed and recorded with various bluegrass bands, including A.L. Wood and the Smokey Ridge Boys, Roy McMillan's High Country Boys, the Border Mountain Boys, L.W. Lambert and the Blue River Boys, C.E. Ward and his band, Garland Shuping, and Wild Country. In the late 1990s, Tommy began teaching fiddle, maintaining a steady stream of students until at least the early 2000s. He continued to perform as a fiddler, filling in for various local bands and recording cuts on records for bands such as Big Country Bluegrass.

This text documents Tommy's life, from his humble beginnings to his lengthy fiddle career. Contextualizing Tommy's work within the Statesville-Troutman bluegrass scene, chapters also explore the local bluegrass culture of the time. Tommy's extensive repertoire is also listed, including his spectacular fiddle contest wins, band recordings, local jam field recordings, and songs recorded for students, all of which highlight his talent and expertise as a fiddler.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781476688596