Grayson County was and is a hotbed of clawhammer banjo masters.  Like many in his class, Enoch Rutherford did not find commercial success in his music but instead was content to be a powerful conduit through which the music of the high mountains of Virginia flowed.  Banjo playing was both a genetic inheritance and a passion for Enoch.  As far back as he could trace his family, he would always find that they played music.  His father learned from his father, who learned from Enoch’s great grandpa and this thread continued in both directions.

            Born into a pre-civil war log cabin, Enoch first learned to fiddle from his father. At about age five, he held Enoch on his lap and helped him hold the bow, and by age 7 he was playing many of his father’s tunes.  Then, he became enthralled by the banjo.  His brother-in-law made Enoch’s first banjo by stretching the hide of a groundhog over a cigar box, attaching a carved neck and stringing it with screen wire.

            Enoch began to play regularly with local fiddlers and had soon acquired a reputation as a hard driving banjo player.  His strong rhythm was fueled by his great dancing ability and the age of 15 he won five dollars in the dance competition at the first White Top Mountain Festival.  The next year, at 16, he won five dollars in the banjo contest at the second White Top festival. 

            After that, Enoch felt empowered to learn licks from such local masters as Wade Ward, but also studied regularly with his cousin, Jincy Stitts Darnell.  Unfortunately, she  had lost her left arm in cotton mill accident and played the banjo by noting it on the back of a chair.  Jincy was, according to Enoch, “the best banjo player I ever heard.”

            Over the years, Enoch held a variety of jobs.  Early on, he worked for the WPA on projects in Grayson County; he was a janitor for the Bridle Creek School, worked for Davis and Sons doing construction and spent five years at a furniture factory.   As the needs of his family grew, he also spent his free time both farming and participating in the family tradition of moonshining.

            For a while, Enoch honed his “hard driving” banjo style while playing for weekend box suppers at the Potato Creek schoolhouse and at square dances in nearby Sparta, NC.  As the needs of his family grew, like most players of his generation, Enoch took a break from late night playing and contests, content to jam in living rooms and in the campgrounds at festivals for a few years.

            In 1972, however, he was challenged by a friend to enter the Independence Fiddler’s Convention.  As he was literally dragged onto the stage, he tore into a wild version of “Banjo Pickin’ Girl” and after winning first place, began to re-enter the contest and playing scene across SW Virginia.  In the mid 1970’s, he played regularly with the “New River Ramblers,” who were considered to be one of the tightest, most high energy bands in old time music.

            Over the years, Enoch recorded with the Iron Mountain String Band, (with legendary fiddler Wiley Mayo) who released an album on Heritage; played with legendary singer Alice Gerrard as part of the “Gold Hill Band,” and often played on stage with his renowned friends, Albert Hash and Emily and Thornton Spencer of the White Top Mountain Band. His reputation as a hard driving, solid underpinning for any fiddler made him one of the most sought after banjoists in the region.

            Enoch Rutherford, although not much known or heralded outside of Virginia’s high regions proudly displayed more than 350 ribbons from local contests including 65 blue first place honors.