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Clint Howard

Musician · 1930–2011 · Mountain City, Tennessee

Clint Howard was a Tennessee-born singer, guitarist, and Appalachian tradition-bearer whose seminal Folkways recordings with Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley in 1960–1962 helped spark the urban folk revival — a near-lifelong resident of Johnson County's "Third community" who continued to sing in his church and serve in local government to the end of his life.

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  • Born October 30, 1930 in Johnson County, Tennessee, and lived nearly all his life in The Third community near Mountain City, deep in the Tennessee Appalachians.
  • Learned to sing from his mother starting around age six; became known for his high, plaintive Appalachian singing as well as guitar, banjo, and harmonica.
  • Recruited by Smithsonian folklorist Ralph Rinzler in 1960 along with Doc Watson, Clarence "Tom" Ashley, Fred Price, and Gaither Carlton for the seminal Folkways sessions issued as "Old-Time Music at Clarence Ashley's, Vol. 1 & 2" (1961 and 1963).
  • Performed with Ashley, Watson, and Price at the 1961 Friends of Old-Time Music concert at New York's Town Hall and at Carnegie Hall, helping spark the 1960s urban folk revival.
  • Toured with Doc Watson as part of his earliest road band before Merle Watson took over the second-guitar chair in 1965.
  • Played the Newport Folk Festival (1963), the Chicago Folk Festival (1962), and other major folk festivals of the era.
  • Worked outside music as a welder at the Newport News, Virginia shipyard and at Maymead, retiring in 1990; served multiple terms as a Johnson County commissioner and highway commissioner.
  • Member and choir leader of Antioch Baptist Church; died at home with family on October 16, 2011 at age 80.

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