It is safe to say that the music of Sidna Myers, along with his adopted brother, Fulton, drew the inspiration for his profound style from both the rocky soil and challenging farm work he chose to undertake.  Living well into the 1970’s without electricity and running water, the banjo/fiddle duets they created were born of their mountain lives.

            Without the influence of commercial radio and mass-produced recordings, the Myers brothers learned their art from their father and from playing with their neighbors in nearby communities such as Tommy Jarrell and Matokie Slaughter.  When they were first recorded by folklorist Peter Hoover, in 1962, they had to leave their farm and head up the road to Spraker’s Store, the only nearby place with power to run the tape recorder.

            One local musician who travelled to hear the Myer’s nightly duet, played after all the chores were done, called it “The smoothest music I believe I ever heard,” and compared their playing to “floating on water.”  Sidna’s right hand was much more melodic than the nearby “Galax sound,” with an “astounding beautiful tone.”  His complex phrasing combined with his rhythmic integrity to local innovators of clawhammer such as Wade Ward and Glen Smith.

            Although not much is known about their earliest years, we do know that they begin to play together when their father gave Sidna a banjo and a neighbor, “Old man ”Mack Farmer gave a fiddle to Fulton when the boys were about nine years old.  Learning all of their tunes in person, purely by ear, led to an authenticity in their sound that few of their contemporaries demonstrated.  In many ways the recordings they made for folklorists including Peter Hoover, John Cohen, Charlie Faurot and others harken back to the earliest Virginia music of fiddle and banjo.

            Sidna and Fulton never received a penny for their playing or for the many recordings made by a string of folklorists and tune seekers that came frequently to visit them.  They were however, quite infatuated with the idea that, as Sidna once put it, “that young folks with fancy electric machines wanted to record them.”Among other notables in Sidna’s repertoire are a widely covered modal version of “Shady Grove,” and a dark, very structurally complex banjo tune called “Twin Sisters.”

            They also played many standards and the influence of both nearby Galax and Round Peak styles can be heard in Sidna’s playing.

            It has been said that both Sidna’s well developed, sophisticated right hand technique along with the beauty and elegance as well as the emotional depth of his playing has inspired many current players to move beyond simple melody lines and plain rhythmic accompaniment.  Although the Myers were reported to have played successfully for many local dances, the fact that Sidna’s version of “Twin Sisters” a technical masterpiece not suited for dancing has been so admired proves that Sidna was both a talented dance musician while at the same time being a true clawhammer artist.

            Sadly, both brothers were buried in separate cemeteries, Sidna near their home with his wife in a grave that incorrectly spells his name as M-e-yers, and Fulton in a distant churchyard in a dual grave with an unknown companion.  Two masters of their craft, abandoned by time.