Uncle Am Stuart
Musician · 1853–1926 · Morristown, Tennessee
Best known for
Fiddle
Ambrose Gaines “Uncle Am” Stuart (1853–1926) was an old-time fiddler from near Morristown, Tennessee, who won contests across southern Appalachia either side of 1900 while working as a safe and vault salesman.
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- Learned the fiddle as a youth from Civil War soldiers and from Black musicians around him, and played Civil War tunes alongside Appalachian dance music.
- Recorded fourteen sides for Vocalion in June 1924, including what are generally counted the first recordings of “Cumberland Gap,” “Grey Eagle,” “Sallie Gooden” and “Old Liza Jane.”
- A young Roy Acuff learned from those records.
- Died in 1926 of pneumonia contracted after a fiddle contest in Washington, D.C.
