Clarence Ashley
Musician · 1895–1967 · Bristol, Tennessee
Best known for
Banjo
Guitar
Lead Vocals
Clarence “Tom” Ashley was an Appalachian banjoist, guitarist, and ballad singer whose eerie recordings of “The Coo Coo Bird” (1929) and “The House Carpenter” (1930) became touchstones of the old-time repertoire. Kept alive on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, his work made him a central figure of the 1960s folk revival—and the vehicle through which the world first heard Doc Watson.
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- Born Clarence Earl McCurry on September 29, 1895, in Bristol, Tennessee, he was raised by his mother’s family and took the Ashley surname; a childhood nickname—“Tommy Tiddy Waddy,” bestowed by his grandfather—gave him the “Tom” he carried for life. His grandfather bought him a banjo at age eight, and his mother and aunts taught him the ballads and clawhammer style—often in a modal “sawmill” tuning—that shaped his sound.
- He began working traveling medicine shows across the southern mountains as early as 1911 as a singer, banjo picker, and blackface comedian, a circuit he returned to for decades and one he shared for a time with a young Roy Acuff.
- Ashley recorded prolifically during the string-band boom, cutting his earliest sides in February 1928 for Gennett and recording through the early 1930s with the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, the Carolina Tar Heels (alongside Dock Walsh and Garley Foster), and Byrd Moore and His Hot Shots (1929).
- His solo Columbia recordings of “The Coo Coo Bird” (Johnson City, 1929) and “The House Carpenter” (Atlanta, 1930) are his defining sides—spare, modal banjo settings of ancient material that remain among the most-covered performances in the old-time canon.
- He also waxed the ballads “Naomi Wise” and “Little Sadie,” and in 1933 recorded “Rising Sun Blues” for Vocalion—among the earliest commercial recordings of the song later famous as “The House of the Rising Sun.”
- The Depression ended his recording career; retiring from the medicine shows in 1943, he bought a truck and hauled coal, furniture, and lumber while continuing to perform locally—working as a comedian with Charlie Monroe’s Kentucky Partners and the Stanley Brothers and leading his own string band, the Tennessee Merrymakers.
- The inclusion of “The Coo Coo Bird” and “The House Carpenter” on Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of American Folk Music (Folkways, 1952) made Ashley a legend to a generation of revivalists who had no idea he was still alive.
- Folklorist Ralph Rinzler met him at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers Convention in 1960 and coaxed him back to music. The resulting Folkways sessions, released as Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s (1961 and 1963), introduced the world to guitarist Arthel “Doc” Watson, whom Ashley had recruited to accompany him.
- In his final years he became a fixture of the folk circuit, appearing at the University of Chicago Folk Festival (1962), the Newport Folk Festival (1963), and Carnegie Hall, and touring England in 1966 with guitarist Tex Isley.
- Ashley died on June 2, 1967, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His recordings influenced Doc Watson and Bob Dylan, and in 2013 Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s was named to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.
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Doc Watson and Clarence AshleyPlayed on recordings with Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley
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Doc WatsonPlayed on recording with Doc Watson
