Tim Thornton’s musical journey began with a Stella Harmony guitar. After years of strumming along with his father’s bluegrass bands, Tim learned a lot of singer-songwriter songs, joined a high school rock band, took a college-era detour into punk and eventually wandered into old time and old string band music – where he began to feel at home.
A Tim Thornton set list might include songs from the Carter Family, the Mississippi Sheiks and The Band; Dock Boggs, Uncle Dave Macon and Randy Newman; Tom Waits, Warren Zevon and Charlie Poole. Tim might play those songs on guitar, banjo, dulcimer, banjo-ukulele, mandolin, banjo-mandolin, fiddle, guitjo, Dobro, tenor banjo, harmonica or kazoo.
Tim has won ribbons for singing and playing guitar, bass, banjo, Dobro, autoharp and dulcimer at fiddlers’ conventions from Happy Valley to Buena Vista. Most of those ribbons were for playing a dulcimer, including seventeen top ten finishes and one first place at the Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, Virginia, which calls itself the “World’s oldest and largest Old Fiddlers’ Convention.”
A veteran of performances at weddings, funerals, festivals, farmers’ markets, fiddlers’ conventions, cookouts, house concerts, square dances, the Floyd Country Store, The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech and the United Methodist Church Virginia Conference Annual Conference, Tim has an eclectic repertoire with roots in Appalachia and branches that reach into blues, gospel and storytelling Americana.
“I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” recorded live at The Floyd Country Store
“Wednesday Night Waltz” recorded live at The Floyd Country Store
“Say Darlin’ Say” recorded live at The Floyd Country Store
“John Henry” with Isak Howell recorded live at the Pocahontas County Opera House
Tim Thornton Music 