Fiddle Tunes I Recall - Mid-Missouri native Lyman Enloe became a music legend as an “old-time” fiddler

Lyman Enloe was raised on a small farm near Enon. Growing up in a family of self-taught musicians, Enloe began learning the fiddle in the late 1920s and was soon winning first-place at local and regional competitions. He later moved to the Kansas City area and performed with a bluegrass band and recorded two albums of fiddle songs. Courtesy of Jim McGreevy

Lyman Enloe was born in 1906, and raised on a farm near Enon, where he came of age watching and learning music from family members and neighbors who were self-taught musicians. His ancestors had decades earlier crossed into Missouri through Kentucky, Tennessee, and South Carolina, but were of Scottish and Irish descent, carrying with them traditional folk songs which had developed over time. This eventually served as an inspiration for him to pick up the fiddle, quickly learning to play the traditional folk and “old-time” songs of his ancestors and becoming recognized throughout the Midwest as an expert musician.

“His father, Elijah ‘Lige’ Enloe, was a renowned fiddler who played for square dances throughout the region,” explained an article by the National Endowment of the Arts. “Lyman got training playing rhythm guitar for his father, his older half-brother Wade and his Uncle ‘Pink’ Enloe.”
 
At first a guitarist, Enloe and his relatives played folk music on KWOS radio, at a time when the program was broadcast from the dome of the Missouri State Capitol. As he gained a little age, Enloe continued to refine his skills as a guitarist while also helping with the work on his father’s farm. In 1922, he graduated the eighth grade from Valley Home School—a one-room schoolhouse near Enon.
 
It was not long after his graduation that he began working at a shoe manufacturing plant in Jefferson City. Regrettably, in 1925 his father passed away but just a few weeks later, Enloe embraced a positive change in his life when receiving permission to wed his fiancée.
 
“Lyman Enloe and Miss Myrtle Howser of this city were married Wednesday morning by Judge J.E. Garman at the courthouse,” the Cole County Weekly Rustler reported on November 6, 1925. “The parents of the young couple attended, as the boy was underage, but had the consent of his mother.”
 
The new couple would in the coming years become parents to nine children. Enloe continued working in Jefferson City while performing as a guitarist, but when his wife fell ill, he briefly stayed home from work to help care for her. It was this moment that served as the turning point in his musical interests since he resolved to learn an instrument that he had been given years earlier.
 
“Enloe was in his 20s before he turned to the fiddle,” explained an article appearing in Miller County Autogram-Sentinel on July 6, 1995. “He said his father had given him a fiddle and one day he just started trying to play it. Enloe cannot read music,” the newspaper added.
 
In 1930, he and his growing family left Jefferson City and moved to a farm east of Enon. Throughout the next few years, he toiled to make a living as a farmer during the economically depressed period of the Great Depression while also playing music locally.
 
He took to the instrument quickly and started competing in local contests and other events such as “old fiddlers’ contests.” Soon, he had earned the reputation as an expert at playing the fiddle and started bringing home blue ribbons for performances.
 
The Miller County Autogram shared in an article on February 2, 1933, “The old fiddlers’ contest Friday and Saturday nights was well attended. Lyman Enloe of Enon won first prize. Wade Enloe (Lyman’s half-brother) also from Enon, won second prize.”
 
Sometime during the mid-1940s, he chose to move his family to the Kansas City area, where he became self-employed as a house painter. All the while, he enjoyed playing with local bluegrass and old-time music groups, often performing with several of his children. Then, in 1966, he became a member of a group called The Down Home Folks.
 
“I first met Lyman in 1966 while he was attending a meeting of the Missouri Old Time Fiddlers Association,” Jim McGreevy recalled. “I was learning to play the banjo, was interested in folk music, and ended up getting acquainted with Lyman. That’s when we decided to form a group and by 1969 were playing small local shows.” He continued, “Don Montgomery was on the bass fiddle, John Bennett on guitar and Chuck Stearman on mandolin. Chuck also established the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA) and was a promoter of bluegrass groups. Through his connections, he was able to coordinate festivals and other dates for us to play.”
 
The Down Home Folks changed their name to the Bluegrass Association, performing together for the next decade. They backed Enloe on his 1973 release of fiddle music titled Fiddle Tunes I Recall in addition to a subsequent recording, Rugged Road. The SPBGMA in both 1984 and 1985 named Enloe as “Old Time Fiddler of the Year,” though his greatest accolade was yet to come.
 
“People don’t usually think about people like Lyman Enloe when they take issue with the National Endowment for the Arts,” explained the Kansas City Star on September 29, 1995. “Perhaps it is time that they did. Enloe … is among 12 recipients of the 1995 National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA.”
 
The prestigious award was presented to Enloe by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during a ceremony held in the East Room of the White House. Less than two years after this ceremony, on April 12, 1997, the 91-year-old Enloe passed away. He was laid to rest in Enloe Cemetery west of Russellville.
 
“When Lyman decided to do the Fiddle Tunes I Recall record, it wasn’t for his legacy or ego but for the music,” McGreevy remarked. “His goal was to leave a record of the music so that up-and-coming young fiddlers could listen to it, learn the tunes and continue to share our music history of the Ozarks.” McGreevy added, “And I know of several instances of that happening.”
           
Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of “Movin’ On,” the upcoming biograpy of the band Missouri. 

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Lyman Enloe, right, began his musical journey playing the guitar. He often performed with relatives and is pictured with his cousin, Enoch “Wesley” Enloe. Courtesy of Linda Amick