Tommy Thompson

Banjo player with the Red Clay Ramblers

Charles William Thompson (Tommy Thompson), banjo player: born St Albans, West Virginia 22 July 1937; married (one son, one daughter); died Durham, North Carolina 24 January 2003.

Tommy Thompson was one of the founders of the acclaimed string band the Red Clay Ramblers. Formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1972, they recorded a series of albums on which they successfully fused old-time country, gospel and jazz influences and later worked closely with the playwright Sam Shepard on several of his film and theatrical projects.

The Ramblers originally played tunes they had learned from 78s by pioneering hillbilly acts such as the Skillet Lickers and Charlie Poole. They quickly tired of this, however, and developed a style Thompson called "new-timey music; a bridge that connects the past and present". Their approach to this music was, Thompson noted, simple: "We like to make a big noise. We're entertainers, not preachers or poets. We get people hoping, laughing and feeling good."

Born in West Virginia in 1937, Thompson worked as a teacher before pursuing his interest in the banjo full-time. By the mid-Sixties he and his guitarist wife Bobbie were joined by both the mandolinist Bertram Levy and the fiddler Alan Jabbour in an outfit named the Hollow Rock String Road. Their tribute to the veteran Virginia fiddler Henry Reed, Traditional Dance Tunes (1968), remains one of the most important projects of its type.

In 1972, the year in which Bobbie Thompson died in a car crash, Thompson joined the fiddler Bill Hicks and multi-instrumentalist Jim Watson in forming the Red Clay Ramblers. A début album was released in 1974 but it was only with the addition to their lineup of the pianist Mike Craver that they found a signature style.

In early 1975, the Red Clay Ramblers headed for New York where they performed in Diamond Studs, a hit musical based on the life of Jesse James. On returning to North Carolina they recorded the album Stolen Love (1975) and demonstrated their eclecticism by including a fine version of Ivor Novello's "Keep the Home Fires Burning". Later acclaimed Red Clay Ramblers discs included Twisted Laurel (1976), Merchant's Lunch (1978), Hard Times (1981) and Rambler (1992).

In 1985 they returned to the New York stage, performing the incidental music for Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. They later collaborated with the playwright on two of his films, Far North (1989) and Silent Tongue (1993), but by the time the latter was released it was clear that Tommy Thompson was experiencing health problems. Diagnosed with the early stages of dementia, he was forced to retire from performing in 1994.

Paul Wadey