Snuffy Jenkins

DeWitt "Snuffy" Jenkins (October 27, 1908 – April 29, 1990) was an American old time banjo player and an early proponent of the three-finger banjo style.

Biography Jenkins was born in Harris, North Carolina, as the last of ten children. He began playing the fiddle as a plucked instrument, switched to guitar and later to a home-made banjo he and his brother Virl had built. He bought his first real banjo in 1927, and soon fell under the influence of Smith Hammett and Rex Brooks, two early banjo players who did much for the development of Jenkins' style. In 1934, he appeared on the radio show Crazy Water Barn Dance over WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina with his newly formed group, the Jenkins String Band. During this time, Jenkins also played in the W.O.W. String Band.

In 1936, he joined J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers as banjo player performing at local radio station WSPA in Spartanburg. The next year, in 1937, the Mountaineers were hired to perform over WIS in Columbia. The announcer of radio station WIS was Byron "The Old Hired Hand" Parker and he almost immediately took over the Mountaineers renaming them Byron Parker's Hillbillies. In 1953, The Hired Hands appeared on television at WIS-TV and in 1955, they added guitarist Bill Rea. In 1956, folklorist Mike Seeger recorded Jenkins (accompanied by Ira Dimmery on guitar) for a Folkways sampler album of three-finger banjo styles. The Hired Hands first recorded as a group for Folk-Lyric in 1962. During the 1960s, they performed on several folk and bluegrass festivals.

When Jenkins was semi-retired in the 1960s he worked as a car salesman in South Carolina.

In 1979, the surviving members of The Hired Hands were invited to stage an old time medicine show in the hamlet of Bailey, North Carolina. The success of the show led the North Carolina Public Television to produce the "Free Show Tonight" which aired over PBS. The Hired Hands also performed their medicine show at the Smithsonian Institution and in 1983, at the American Place Theater in New York City. On the other hand, there is no doubt that Jenkins did indeed influence Don Reno with his picking and Scruggs does name Jenkins as a major influence. While Jenkins played a three finger banjo style similar to Scruggs in the North Carolina mountains he was an important influence on Earl Scruggs who is often referred to as the father of bluegrass banjo playing. Jenkins played a more archaic style than Scruggs and his followers and is closer to older string band banjo playing.

A music festival, recently revived after a 20-year hiatus, in honor of Snuffy Jenkins is held annually in Rutherford County, NC (Snuffy's birthplace). The Snuffy Jenkins Festival features bluegrass and old-time music, and includes historical talks and discussions of Snuffy's life and music as well as related discussions about the contributions of other innovative banjo players from the region: Rex Brooks, Smith Hammett, and Earl Scruggs.

Discography

Footnotes 14. Evans, David. 1973 p. 591