Holt, David

DAVID HOLT

  • From Garland, Texas.
  • Former host of the Nashville Network’s “Fire on the Mountain” TV show, which was the network’s highest-rated show in 1985. Cancelled due to production costs and lack of sponsorship in 1986.
  • Calls himself “A One Man Celebration of Stories and Songs.”
  • Plays banjo, guitar, hammered dulcimer, fiddle, bones, autoharp, squeeze box, and jaw harp. Sings, dances, tells folk tales and does a little “hollering.”
  • Has a one man show called “From Here to Kingdom Come” (Kingdom Come is a community in the hills of Eastern Kentucky.)
  • A former elementary schoolteacher and a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
  • Established The Appalachian Music Program at Warren Wilson College (North Carolina).
  • First television exposure: “Folkways” on PBS (1982).
  • Host of “Riverwalk: Classic Jazz from the Landing” broadcast on the American Public Radio Network live from San Antonio, Texas.
  • Plays a 125-year-old banjo.
  • 1984, Esquire Magazine selected him as one its first “Annual Register of Men and Women Who Are Changing America” (along with Steven Spielberg, Sally Ride, and Meryl Streep, among others.)
  • 1992 album “Grandfather’s Greatest Hits” nominated for a Grammy Award in “Best Folk Recording” category.
  • 2000, appeared in the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou” starring George Clooney. He played one of the village idiots.
  • 2011, formed a trio with Bryan Sutton (guitar) and T. Michael Coleman (bass) and released album “Sutton, Holt and Coleman.”