Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.
James “Dink” Roberts (1894–1989) grew up in the “Little Texas” community of Alamance County in piedmont North Carolina and made his living growing tobacco as a tenant farmer. But early in his life he learned the clawhammer banjo style from the older children of an uncle who raised him and from other black banjo players in the community. The film shows him in his family setting performing several kinds of music—playing banjo and singing dance songs, dramatic banjo songs, and even early country blues performed on guitar.
