Grayson and Whitter

Band · Active 1927–1930 · Tennessee & Virginia

Grayson and Whitter were an old-time duo — blind fiddler and singer G.B. Grayson with guitarist Henry Whitter — whose brief recording career left an outsized mark on later old-time, folk-revival, and bluegrass music. In barely three years they cut some forty sides whose songs and settings became standards.

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  • G.B. Grayson (1887–1930), blinded as an infant, was a forceful fiddler and high, keening singer from the Laurel Bloomery area on the Tennessee–North Carolina line.
  • Henry Whitter (1892–1941), of Fries, Virginia, was already a recording pioneer when the two met — his 1923 sides rank among the earliest commercial country records.
  • The pair recorded roughly forty sides for Victor and Gennett between 1927 and 1930.
  • Their 1929 "Tom Dooley" is the best-known early recording of the ballad the Kingston Trio took to number one in 1958 — a hit often credited with helping spark the folk revival.
  • Versions of "Handsome Molly," "Ommie Wise," "Train 45," and "I've Always Been a Rambler" passed into the standard old-time and bluegrass repertoire through their recordings.
  • The partnership ended when Grayson was killed in a roadside accident near Damascus, Virginia, in August 1930; Whitter recorded little more before his death in 1941.

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