When I first moved to Tennessee I had a guitar to be repaired, but couldn’t remember the name of the man so many people had referred me to for the job. All I knew was that he lived on a mountain top, in another town. Trying to remember, I picked up a phone book, hoping something would jog my memory—and the book opened up to his name!
––I had to find Tom Morgan.
The walls of his cabin are full of photo albums with pictures of Tom playing with everyone in Bluegrass. Tom is a first generation Bluegrass musician, and he and his family are luthiers, making instruments for many of the greats. He is known among Bluegrass musicians as “The Dean of Bluegrass Luthiers”. Tom has also been recognized as a Legend of Bluegrass, having played with Buz Busby, with The Country Gentlemen, and with Red Allen and Frank Wakefield –at Carnegie Hall and the Grand Ole Opry. The album shown here is on Smithsonian Folkways records, a document of the American musical legacy.
I apprenticed with Tom in learning to repair, modify, and decorate instruments. He had taken time out of his life and semi-retirement from instrument building to teach me inlay. He provided the Catalpa wood box that carried Katherine’s ring to Scotland for our wedding. With Tom’s help and materials I inlaid a Celtic knot into the top in abalone and Mother of Pearl.
Tom always carried with him a little black book. It was tattered and torn, worn and dog-eared on every corner. Not one for computers, or websites, or emails, Tom’s book was filled with the handwritten names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone in Bluegrass music. So many that they spilled into the margins, written in pencil and ink, old and new alike. Like the event signs and posters that lined the walls of his shop, it seemed like a national treasure to me.
At one time he owned 10,000 lbs of Brazilian Rosewood, resting in his attic. Now singing in the instruments that Tom, Mary, and Scott had built for everyone over the years, that treasured tone wood can be heard on recordings and seen on stages wherever folk music is played.
As a performer, the highlight for me was when I followed Norman Blake onstage at the Bob Douglas Fiddle Fest. I had been learning his music when I was first learning the guitar years earlier. Tom had made it possible. Backstage, I thanked Mr. Blake for being an inspiration to a generation of players like myself. He kindly autographed my copy of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, the album I was learning all those years ago.
And it was with Tom that I slipped into the backstage door at the Appalachian Museum Reunion into a surreal scene. An annual pilgrimage to Norris, Tennessee brings everyone home to play the music Tom and his family had helped to create. There around us were the living legends of Bluegrass: Ralph Stanley, and Doc Watson, the Carter family.
Tom had made Dr. Stanley’s banjo back in the day.
A part of Tom’s legacy is his steadfast devotion to his musical tradition. He has gone to great lengths and personal expense to see that Folk Music is still shared among young and old alike, in the humblest of settings, and in the heights of cultural venues. Within the same week he might perform in someone’s living room, and then again in a Ballroom at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
In Tennessee it is a great honor when a fellow guitarist gives you a guitar. Tom gave me a 1930 National Duolian, which I will always treasure.
When we first met, Tom generously handed me his 1941 Martin D28 to play, a Holy Grail of acoustic guitars.
The music I learned years before I was now playing on an American Classic, in the home of an American Legacy, in a Cherokee cabin on the Trail of Tears.
Across many lives and years, I recognize now that it was a healing. Thank you, Tom. You have been like a second father to me.
The circle is unbroken.
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Below is a video from 1985 of Tom, Mary, and Scott Morgan playing with Benny Williams at Morgan Springs, on Dayton Mountain in Tennessee. The late Mary Morgan is on the autoharp, and their son Scott is playing the signature guitar he built himself. Tom is playing the D28, and is the featured singer on the second number, “Tall Pines”.
