Art Galbraith

Thomas Arthur 'Art' Galbraith was born in 1909, and came from Greene County Missouri, in the Ozark area, on the border between Missouri and Arkansas.  The Ozarks have a notable fiddling tradition, in which Art was an important figure.  The area was settled mainly by people from the Appalachians looking for fresh territory with room to expand.  Although they must have brought music from the English tradition with them, jigs and hornpipes are rare in the Ozark repertoire.  Art Galbraith's playing can claim direct descent through the earliest settlers.  He learned fiddle from his Uncle Tobe, who learned from his grandfather Andrew Galbraith, a veteran of the war of 1812, a fiddler and a dancing master, who had moved to Missouri from Tennessee in 1841.  Art worked for the Springfield Post Office for most of his working life, retiring in the mid-60s.  He died in January 1993.