Tommy Jackson was a rare breed among “back-up” country musicians. He held the rank of “the best fiddle player of the decade of the ‘40s and ‘50s” among his peers. When it came to playing a style commonly referred to as “walking-fiddle,” Tommy was the best. I had the pleasure of using him on two of my original songs recorded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1969, “A New Love” and “Everything Reminds Me Of You,” which is part of my CD entitled, “Hey There, It’s Me Again.” It’s just so sad that nobody but musicians will remember Tommy Jackson!

Thomas Lee Jackson was born in Birmingham, Alabama on March 31, 1926. Less than a  year later, his father, a barber by trade, moved his family to Nashville, where he would grow up listening to the very best the Grand Ole Opry had to offer. He took up the fiddle at the age of 7, and by the time he turned 12 he was on tour with John Wright and Kitty Wells. Soon, Tommy had his own band on WSIX, a radio station in Nashville, then gave that up to play fiddle for Curly Williams and his Georgia Peach Pickers.

When World War II broke out, Tommy joined the United States Air Force. He spent 1944 and 1945 as a tail gunner in a B-29 flying missions in the Pacific, earning four Bronze Stars and an Air Medal.

After the war, Tommy returned to playing his fiddle in Nashville. He soon found out that he didn’t like traveling and doing road shows, so he hooked up with Red Foley and his band, The Cumberland Valley Boys, who had a regular radio show right in town. This also made Tommy available to book record sessions with rising stars like Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, Grandpa Jones, Cowboy Copas,  and George Jones, just to mention a few. In the early ‘50s, he made his first records for Mercury, and in 1953 he signed with Dot Records.

Over the next ten years, Jackson cut 11 albums and 30 singles, some of them with Ray Price and Faron Young. Meanwhile, he was perfecting the style of “the walking fiddle” that many aspiring fiddle players would try to immulate. By 1960, Tommy was one of the busiest fiddle players in country music, appearing on hundreds of recordings sessions for many of the “names” in the business.

Tommy Jackson passed away on December 9, 1979, his death virtually un-noticed except for a few of the musicians who knew him. Bruce Eder, of All Music Guide, notes, “Jackson is remembered today primarily by country music scholars. The acquisition of Dot Records by MCA Records has opened the way for reissues of his solo material on compact disc.”

I will remember Tommy Jackson, and be thankful that I knew him, not only as a wonderful fiddle player who made two of my songs better, but because he was a fine human being.

Dusty Owens
TCM Radio News