Wade Ward (1892–1971) was an American old-time music banjo player and fiddler from Independence, Virginia. He was widely known playing the clawhammer

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 ...

and frequently won the

Galax, Virginia Galax is an independent city in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,720. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Galax with neighboring Carroll County for statisti ...

Old Time Fiddler's Convention. His instrument, a Gibson RB-11 5-string banjo, is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Along with

Kyle Creed Kyle Creed (1912–1982) was an influential musician and banjo luthier of 20th century Appalachia. Along with Tommy Jarrell, and Fred Cockerham, he was a central figure of the Roundpeak-style old-time music that began to find an outside audience i ...

, Wade Ward is known for his 'Galax' style of playing the clawhammer banjo.

Biography

Ward began performing in public in 1919, at age 26. His first group, the Buck Mountain Band, included Van Edwards on fiddle and Van's son Earl on guitar. In 1925, Ward recorded four solo tunes (unreleased) for the Okeh label during a field recording session in

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...

. In October 1929 he and the Buck Mountain Band recorded four more tunes for Okeh in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, two of which were released. In the early 1930s, Ward joined a band called the Ballard Branch Bogtrotters, formed by his older brother Crockett, who was twenty years his senior. Ward played banjo, Crockett and his neighbor Alec "Uncle Eck" Dunford played fiddles, Crockett's son Fields played guitar and sang, and the Wards' family doctor W. P. Davis managed the group and occasionally played autoharp. Folklorist John A. Lomax discovered the group in 1937 at the Galax Fiddlers' Convention and recorded them for the Library of Congress. John's son

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

recorded Wade in 1939, 1941, and again in 1959; nearly 200 recordings of Ward are archived at the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center. Other folklorists including Mike Seeger and Peter Hoover made additional field recordings in the 1950s and 1960s. The Bogtrotters appeared at festivals during the folk revivals of the 40s and 50s. Despite his musical gifts, Ward made his living as a farmer. He died in 1971 in Independence, Virginia, and is buried in the Saddle Creek Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery a few miles west of town.

Discography

*Many other recordings by Wade Ward have been released on compilation albums from Smithsonian Folkways, Biograph, Rounder, County and other labels.

Biography

Discography

See also

References

Further reading