The Swinney Fiddle

While attending the 71st annual Galax Old Fiddlers Convention, we stopped in the Stringbean Coffeehouse to view the wonderful photo exhibit of Galax musicians by Mark Sanderford. While there, we noticed that someone was exhibiting and selling handmade fiddles and were struck by the name on his sign....

Glen Joseph Swinney is originally from the Swinney Hollow area of Fries and it only took a few minutes to establish that he was related to the original Swinneys that settled Iron Mountain. He now lives on Fries Road near Galax and is retired from working in one of the Galax furniture factories. Joe is a fiddler and decided to try his hand at making fiddles in his retirement since he had worked with wood all of his life.

Freddy Sue and Joe Swinney

At the Stringbean exhibit, Joe had four completed fiddles...numbered 2-through-5. His first fiddle was completed in the spring of 2005 and took him over a year to make. That first fiddle is now proudly hanging on his wall at home. Numbers 3-5 were named for family members...Nos.3 and 4 are named for his wife, Freddie-Sue Swinney(No. 3 is Freddy, and No.4 is Sue) and No. 5 is named for his son, Buck. Joe has two more fiddles in progress in his workshop and they will be named for a daughter ('Ce-Ce') and a second son ('Hammerhead').

We played all four of the completed Swinney fiddles and found that all were surprisingly good. No.2 was really outstanding. We invited Bobby Taylor to go to the Stringbean with us the next day to play the fiddles for us to confirm or deny our initial impressions. Bobby is an amazing fiddler and a long-standing old-time contest judge at the Galax Fidders Convention. . After playing No.2, he said..."If you don't buy this one, I am...it's a great fiddle now and it's only going to get better." So we bought No.2...the first fiddle that Joe has sold. The only problem was that he had started naming his fiddles with No.3 ....so No.2 did not have a name. We asked him to name it and he obliged that request.

Baby-O born October 17, 2005

Joe Swinney's No.2 fiddle is now named 'Baby-O' ...for one of his granddaughters, Elena Marie Felts (Ce-Ce's daughter). It was completed on October 17, 2005 and bears two labels: one with the date and number, and one with Joe's signature. We have asked him to make a third label to be placed inside which includes the name 'Baby-O'. Joe and CeCe gave us a school picture of her daughter to keep with the fiddle.

We then spent the next two hours playing tunes with Bobby at the Stringbean. Bobby played 'Baby-O' alongside his pair of prized Hazelet fiddles and she held up quite well in the comparison!

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