Unlike many of our masters of clawhammer, Armstead Roscoe Parish was not a contest competitor or a dance musician.  His style of playing was slower, complex and more melodic than either the “Galax Gallup,” or the Round Peak styles that often dominated the area.  Living in the Coal Creek community, outside Galax, he developed a unique “micro” style that bridged the gap.  Roscoe’s primary influence was his father, Johnny Parish. He was a well-known fiddler and banjo player during the civil war era in Galax and it is from him that Roscoe learned his unique style and repertoire.

            In many ways Roscoe’s life embodied the historical tension in the region, as the Blue Ridge transitioned from an agrarian culture to a more industrialized world of coal extraction and mill work.  On one hand, Roscoe was a farmer, steeped in the old ways, but learned to be an automobile mechanic, able to fix the latest cars.  He was a traditional player whose tunes and songs largely came from the pre-civil war era, but he also learned tunes from the radio.  He chose to hand built his banjos from fruit trees on his farm, yet also used his mechanical abilities to repair machines.

            “I played as much like my daddy as I could,” Roscoe told one tune collector, “because he was all I ever heard back then.”  Roscoe began playing music at about the age of 10, when his brother bought a fiddle from Sears and Roebuck mail order and set about learning all the tunes his father could play.  When, a couple years later he turned to the banjo, he used the fiddle to learn tunes and then painstakingly transferred the music to banjo.  His father was a shape note singer and could read notes, and he imparted these skills to Roscoe. Thus, by way of fiddle he became a note-for-note banjo player rather than a rhythmic machine.

            During his teen years, Roscoe became fascinated with photography, another mechanical advancement new to the region.  As a visual documentation, he tried to preserve the present and the past, much as he did with his music In 1928, just as country music was becoming a commercial product, he moved to Buchanan County, deep in the coalfields and started an auto mechanic business with his brother. Here he was on the cutting edge of the new era, learning the ins and outs of the Model T and Model A Fords.

            During this time, he married his wife, Dora, and they decided in 1930 to move back to Coal Creek, permanently.  The couple had a son, Johnny, who, at a young age followed his father’s musical interests and quickly learned to play fiddle, mandolin and guitar.  This father and son duo was joined by Roscoe’s sister who played both piano and guitar.  The focus of Roscoe’s musical talent became primarily playing in the parlor and striving to play and preserve the old tunes, note for note.  Roscoe preferred preserving the ancient sounds of clawhammer as opposed to the frenetic dance tempos of the dance halls.

            Roscoe’s primary banjo was made in the older tradition: open backed, with an apple wood rim. He did not use a metal tone ring, giving the banjo where the notes rapidly decayed as opposed to the sustain of metal.  In addition, he preferred to use a bridge made from cow bone as opposed to the more modern hardwood preferred by industrial makers.  Collectors remarked that this banjo had a “intimate” and “complex” tone, perfect for Roscoe’s ancient melodic approach.

            Roscoe’s collection of tunes included unique and rare tunes including “Katy Bar the Door,” “Tildy Moore,” “Cleveland’s March to the Whitehouse,” “Liquor Seller,” and Miss Johnson’s Hornpipe,” all from the 1800’s and preserved note for note.  It wasn’t until after the folk revival years that Roscoe’s playing was recorded.  In his later life, he played with at least two bands that were featured at the Galax Old Fiddler’s Convention, the “Piper’s Gap Ramblers” and the “Dixie Ramblers,” but he did not compete in the contests.

            In the late 1970’s Roscoe was recorded by collectors Tom Carter and Andy Cahn, preserving his unique playing on two collections, “Old Time Tunes from Coal Creek,” and Heritage Records, “The Old Time Way.” These recordings weren’t released until after his death.  Those important recordings are housed digitally at the University of North Carolina.  Thankfully, the “graceful” archaic playing of Roscoe lives on and his tunes are cherished by clawhammer enthusiasts.