Gordon Terry (1931 to 2006) was an Alabama fiddler who played the Grand Ole Opry at age nine, won the Alabama Fiddling Championship in 1946, and joined the Opry as a member in 1950. He fiddled on Bill Monroe records in 1951, then built a second career as a country singer, actor, and television performer. His 1957 Cadence single paired Black Mountain Rag with Orange Blossom Special.
Why Terry matters
Terry proved that a fiddler could front a show. Most Blue Grass Boys alumni stayed sidemen. Terry sang lead, cut singles for Columbia, RCA, Cadence, and Liberty, appeared in films, and toured with Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Through all of it he kept the fiddle in front, and his Black Mountain Rag and Orange Blossom Special showed jam fiddlers how to turn a breakdown into a crowd piece.
Life and career
Terry was born on October 7, 1931, in Decatur, Alabama. He played the Grand Ole Opry for the first time at age nine. In 1946 he took first prize at the Alabama Fiddling Championship. He joined the Opry in 1950 and within a year was recording with Bill Monroe. His fiddle is on Monroe’s 1951 Decca single Sugar Coated Love, cut with Carter Stanley on guitar and lead vocal and Rudy Lyle on banjo.
After Army service in Korea he moved to California. He made his film debut in Hidden Guns in 1956 and appeared on the television series Sky King. His records from this period include Black Mountain Rag backed with Orange Blossom Special on Cadence in 1957, Wild Honey in 1962, and the 1962 album Square Dance Party. In 1961 he recorded a square dance album with Flatt and Scruggs.
Terry worked with Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, and he recorded with Elvis Presley, Faron Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Neil Young. In 1964 he opened Terrytown, an amusement park in Loretto, Tennessee, and later sold it. He founded ROPE, the Reunion of Professional Entertainers, to build a retirement home for entertainers. He cut his own version of Uncle Pen in 1970. Bear Family collected his early singles as Lotta Lotta Women in 1995.
Terry died on April 9, 2006, in Spring Hill, Tennessee, at age 74.
Playing style
Terry played show fiddle in the Southern country tradition. His Black Mountain Rag follows the Tommy Magness tune, with the ringing drone strings and the fast single-string runs that made it a contest and show standard. His Orange Blossom Special uses the train whistle double stops, the fast shuffle on the low strings, and the long build that audiences expect from the tune. He arranged that version himself.
He drove a breakdown with a hard, even shuffle that came from square dance playing. On Square Dance Party he runs through Sally Goodin, Old Joe Clark, Twinkle Little Star, and Soldier’s Joy at dance tempo, with clean melody and few extra notes. That plain approach made him useful on records by singers, where a fiddle break has to be short.
Influences and legacy
Terry came up in the Alabama fiddle contest world and in the Opry house band tradition of Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith and Tommy Magness. Magness wrote Black Mountain Rag, and Terry’s 1957 single spread it. His Monroe year put him in the line of Blue Grass Boys fiddlers that runs from Chubby Wise through Kenny Baker.
His 1959 recording of Twinkle Little Star with Merle Travis and his Town Hall Party television appearances took the Opry fiddle style to the West Coast. Decatur named the Gordon Terry Parkway after him in the 1980s.
Signature tunes and songs
Black Mountain Rag Orange Blossom Special Wild Honey Lotta Lotta Women Uncle Pen Sally Goodin Twinkle Little Star.
Essential recordings
Black Mountain Rag / Orange Blossom Special (Cadence, 1957) Sugar Coated Love, with Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys (Decca, 1951) Square Dance Party (1962) Lotta Lotta Women (Bear Family, 1995)
Awards and honors
Alabama Fiddling Championship (1946) Fiddlers Hall of Fame, charter member (1981) Gordon Terry Parkway, Decatur, Alabama (1980s) Southern Legends Entertainment and Performing Arts Hall of Fame (2006)
Watch and listen
Terry’s 1957 Cadence recording of Black Mountain Rag. Listen for the drone strings under the melody.
Terry plays Tennessee Wagner on the Town Hall Party television show. Watch how he works the crowd while keeping the shuffle steady.
What to learn from Terry
Learn Black Mountain Rag from the 1957 single. Most fiddlers play it in A cross tuning (A E A E). Keep the bow on two strings and let the open strings ring. The technique to steal is his shuffle bowing on breakdowns. Play Sally Goodin along with Square Dance Party and match his bow pattern: a long stroke, then two short ones, with the accent on the long stroke. It is the pulse a square dance needs and the pulse a jam needs.
Sources
Gordon Terry, Wikipedia Gordon Terry: 1931-2006, Bluegrass Today Gordon Terry, Discogs Gordon Terry, Black Mountain Rag / Orange Blossom Special, Discogs Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys, Highway of Sorrow / Sugar Coated Love, Discogs Gordon Terry, Square Dance Party, Discogs Gordon Terry, Wild Honey, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more players. Terry followed Chubby Wise into Monroe’s band and came before Kenny Baker. He recorded the Tommy Magness tune Black Mountain Rag. Howdy Forrester and Benny Martin worked the same Nashville stages in the 1950s.