Charlie Poole

Charlie Poole & his North Carolina Ramblers were one of the most popular string bands of the 1920s and had a great influence on the development of bluegrass music. Poole is largely responsible for popularizing the banjo and creating a unique playing style involving a thumb and two fingers.



He was born in Randolph County, North Carolina, and spent much of his adult life working in textile mills. He learned banjo as a youth and also played baseball. (It is believed that his playing style stemmed from a baseball accident involving his thumb.) When not working in mills, he would travel from town to town across the country to play banjo and work.



He settled in Spray, North Carolina in 1918 and married two years later. His brother-in-law, fiddler Posey Rorer, would often play with other local musicians and together they became the North Carolina Ramblers. Poole and Rorer teamed up with guitarist Norm Woodlief in 1925 and began recording careers in New York for Columbia Records. There they cut four songs; all were successful, including the bluesy "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down," a country standard and Poole's signature song. The Ramblers were suddenly a popular stringband. Though the personnel changed frequently over the years, the band's unusual sound remained consistent. As the vocalist, Poole sang with a plain, uninflected style that complemented his complex banjo picking. The songs they sang were a mixture of minstrel songs, Victorian ballads, and humorous burlesques all delivered with Poole's straight-faced dry wit. Through the rest of the decade, the Ramblers released close to 60 singles for Columbia. Like many country performers to follow, Poole lived a fast life; he was a hard drinking man, rowdy and reckless.



When the Depression hit in 1930, Poole's career had peaked and his popularity began waning as did his self-confidence. As a result, he began drinking even more heavily. Scheduled to appear in a film in 1931, he unfortunately went on a bender and died of heart failure before he could get to Hollywood. After his death, Rorer (who had left the band in 1929) and guitarist Roy Harvey (who'd replaced Woodlief around the same time), began leading the North Carolina Ramblers. The group continued to record and perform for a quite a few years afterward.



Poole's music enjoyed renewed popularity during the folk revival of the '60s and in 1993, a CD of his best songs was released. Also, Kinney Rorrer wrote and published Ramblin' Blues, a biography of the great banjo player.