Photo by Tom Pich

2001 NEA National Heritage Fellow Eddie Pennington Princeton, KY Thumbpicking-style guitarist

A particular area of western Kentucky, Muhlenburg County, is known as the birthplace of a complex guitar-playing style known as thumbpicking. This instrumental technique requires the thumb to keep a regular rolling rhythm while the fingers pick the lead melody. Popularized by Merle Travis and further developed by instrumentalists such as Chet Atkins, this music had a common source in Mose Rager, a guitarist from the region. Eddie Pennington, the son of a coal miner, also learned from Mose Rager, but he stayed home in Princeton, Kentucky, to become a county coroner and funeral director. Music was a part of his family heritage. Relatives say that his great-great grandfather, Edward Alonzo Pennington was a fiddler who was unfairly convicted of a murder and who played a tune still played today called "Pennington's Farewell" as he sat on his coffin watching the hangman prepare the noose. Eddie's father, a coal miner, played fiddle and exposed his son to songs about the life of a coal miner. Today, Pennington continues to play this ornamental instrumental style, enlivening his public performances with humorous stories about his experiences as a funeral director. He has recently been featured on stages at the National Folk Festival, as part of the Folk Master series at the Barns of Wolf Trap and on the Masters of the Steel String Guitar Tour.

 
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NEA Heritage Fellows
1982-present: 
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