Charlie Poole

about

Charlie Poole (March 22, 1892 - May 21, 1931) was an American old time banjo player and country musician and the leader of "Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers", an American old-time string band that recorded many popular songs between 1925 and 1931. Charlie was born in Spray, now part of Eden, Rockingham County, in the northern Piedmont region of North Carolina, near the Virginia border. He learned banjo as a youth. Poole also played baseball, and his three-fingered playing technique was the result of a baseball accident. He bet that he could catch a baseball without a glove. Poole closed his hand too soon, the ball broke his thumb, and resulted in a permanent arch in his right hand. Poole bought his first good banjo, an Orpheum No. 3 Special, with profits from his moonshine still. Later, he appeared in the 1929 catalog of the Gibson Company, promoting their banjo. He spent much of his adult life working in textile mills. Charlie Poole and his brother-in-law, fiddler Posey Rorer - whom he had met in West Virginia in 1917 and whose sister he married - formed a trio with guitarist Norman Woodlieff called the North Carolina Ramblers. The group auditioned in New York for Columbia Records. After landing a contract, they recorded the highly successful "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues" on July 27, 1925. This song sold over 102,000 copies at a time when there were estimated to be only 600,000 phonographs in the Southern United States, according to Poole’s biographer and

top songs

albums

Husband and Wife Were Angry One Night

You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music

I'm the Man Who Rode the Mule 'round the World

Presenting Charlie Poole

The Very Best Of Charlie Poole

Hungry Hash House

Volume Two

The Legend Of Charlie Poole Volume 3

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Charlie Poole (Doxy Collection)

Old Time Songs

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The Whiskey River

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The Best Of Can't You Hear Me Callin' - Bluegrass: 80 Years Of American Music

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