Jimmie Tarlton
Musician · 1892–1979 · Cheraw, South Carolina
Best known for
Songwriter
Jimmie Tarlton was a South Carolina-born street and lap-steel guitarist whose partnership with Tom Darby produced “Columbus Stockade Blues” and “Birmingham Jail” — a 1927 Columbia double-sided release that sold more than 200,000 copies and helped move the steel guitar into the country mainstream. Their 63 sides influenced the Allen Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, and most of the brother-duo acts that followed them.
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- Born May 8, 1892, in Cheraw, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, to a family of sharecroppers; learned slide guitar and banjo as a boy.
- Worked as a street musician through the early 1920s, picking up Hawaiian-style steel-guitar technique from Frank Ferera.
- Moved to Columbus, Georgia, where he met guitarist and singer Tom Darby; the two formed Darby and Tarlton in the mid-1920s.
- Cut “Birmingham Jail” and “Columbus Stockade Blues” for Columbia in Atlanta on November 10, 1927; coupled on a single 78, the songs became the duo’s biggest hit and a country best-seller.
- Recorded 63 sides with Darby between 1927 and 1933.
- Helped popularize the lap-steel guitar in commercial country music and directly influenced the Allen and Delmore Brothers.
- “Columbus Stockade Blues” was reissued on Harry Smith’s 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, where it helped seed the folk revival.
- Died November 29, 1979, in Phenix City, Alabama.
