John "Uncle" Homer Walker (February 15, 1898 or c. 1904 – January 4, 1980) was an American Appalachian

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

player who was popular during the

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

revival of the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to his death, he was one of the last musicians to practice the old-time Appalachian style. Walker was born in Mercer County, West Virginia into a musical family: his father, a

sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

, was a banjo player, two sisters learned the

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, and Walker's two brothers played guitar. His grandfather, himself a former slave, taught Walker the clawhammer banjo playing style, once a fairly common pre-

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

component found in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

region. In the 1920s, Walker began performing, sometimes accompanied by a mandolin or

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

player, at

square dance A square dance is a dance for four couples, or eight dancers in total, arranged in a square, with one couple on each side, facing the middle of the square. Square dances contain elements from numerous traditional dances and were first documente ...

s, presenting a repertoire of old-time black spirituals and folk tunes passed along to him from his grandfather like "

Steal Away "Steal Away" ("Steal Away to Jesus") is an American Negro spiritual. The song is well known by variations of the chorus: Songs such as "Steal Away to Jesus", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Wade in the Water" and the " Gospel Train" are songs with ...

", " Cripple Creek", "John Henry", and " Old Joe Clark". He lived most of his adult life in Glen Lyn working as a laborer and farmhand. During the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s, Walker appeared at numerous folk festivals such as John Henry Folk Festival, the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

’s Festival of American Folklife. Only during his appearances at these festivals, Walker claimed, did he first start incorporating the blues into his repertoire. In 1977, Walker was the subject of the documentary film ''Banjo Man'', directed by Joseph Vinikow and Reuben Chodosh and narrated by bluesman

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

. He died in Princeton, West Virginia. Walker's recordings are featured on the

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...

s ''Virginia Traditions - Non-Blues Secular Black Music'' and ''Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Uncle Year of birth uncertain 1980 deaths People from Mercer County, West Virginia People from Giles County, Virginia Musicians from West Virginia African-American banjoists