THOMPSON, UNCLE JIMMY
(1848–1931)
THOMPSON, UNCLE JIMMY (b. James Donald T., Baxter, Putnam County, Tenn., 1848–February 17, 1931) Born in a small farming town between Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee, Thompson moved with his family to Texas sometime around his tenth birthday. He learned to fiddle there, absorbing the showy style of Texas contest fiddlers through such virtuoso pieces as Flying Clouds, a popular late-nineteenth-century dance number. By the mid-1880s Thompson had made his way back to Tennessee, where he settled…