JIM SHUMATE
- From Hickory, North Carolina.
- Began playing fiddle at age 14. He is considered one of the pioneers of classic bluegrass fiddling. He is the only fiddler to have worked as a member of each of the first three “Hall of Fame” bluegrass acts: Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys (1943), The Stanley Brothers (1948) and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys (1948).
- 1943-1945, played with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. In Nashville, introduced Earl Scruggs (also from Hickory NC) to Bill Monroe.
- 1943, returned to the furniture business in Hickory.
- 1948, won the National Fiddlers Convention in Richlands, Virginia.
- 1948, worked briefly with the Stanley Brothers.
- 1948, joined Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Appeared on their first Mercury recordings.
- Retired from life on the road to build furniture in the Hickory, NC area.
- 1980, recorded “Bluegrass Fiddle Supreme” (RSR Records) backed by the Blue River Boys.
- 1995, won the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award.
- 1999, appeared in the CNN TV Special “Grass Roots to Bluegrass.”
- 2011, was inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame.
- Performed with his own band “Sons of the Carolinas.”
- 2013, died at the age of 91.