Todd Meade, world-traveling fiddle player, tucks into his barbecued pork with gusto. “I grew up listening to my great-grandpa Uncle Charlie fiddle,” he says in his gentle, dimpled drawl. “He lived to be 101, but died when I was seven, and I started playing after that. Here, try this barbecue sauce. I’m so glad you drink and smoke!”
Todd began fiddling during weekly Tuesday lessons with teacher Scott Gould, and after five years had learnt nearly 200 songs—he can read music, but prefers to pick up tunes by listening. He attended Tuesday-night jam sessions in Bristol, the alleged birthplace of country, Friday-night jams in Bluntville, and raise-the-rafters Saturday-night jams at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons. “Back when I was growing up, it was just me and a bunch of old men,” he reminisces. “Now, there’s a lot more interest in roots music.”
In high school, Todd was asked to put a band together to fundraise for the National Honor Society (“I wasn’t in the honor society,” he specifies, grinning). The band, Twin Springs, composed of classmates and relatives, was such a success that they recorded a CD. It wasn’t long before bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, one-half of the duo often credited with inventing modern bluegrass music, came knocking. Devotees speak of Stanley, who with his brother Carter made a series of seminal bluegrass recordings between 1949 and 1952, in hallowed tones, citing him as the best banjo picker in bluegrass music. The Library of Congress has named Stanley a Living Legend, and he was the first recipient of the Traditional Music Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Although his brother died in 1966, Stanley, who is now in his late seventies, has continued to tour the country nearly 200 days a year for the past half-century, and appeared on the Grammy-winning soundtrack to the 2000 smash cinema hit O Brother, Where Art Thou? Needless to say, when, shortly after Todd’s eighteenth birthday, he handed over Todd twelve CDs and said, “Learn these,” Todd hastened to.
“The first time I played with him was in front of a thousand people and a bunch of cameras,” Todd recalls. “I was so nervous; he’s such a legend.” Shortly after, however, scenes like these became old hat. “We were away for 250 days that year. The first week I was on the job, he said, ‘Pack your bags, we’re going to California for two weeks tomorrow.’ It was my first time ever on an airplane.” Traveling became old hat, too. “I’ve been to every state in the continental U.S.; if I haven’t played there, I’ve driven through it.” But he adds, wistfully, “We didn’t do much other than play, though. I didn’t see states so much as interstates…”