David Holt

Holt is well known for his television and radio series. Currently he is host of public television's Folkways a North Carolina PBS series that takes the viewer through the Southern Mountains visiting traditional craftsmen and musicians. He served as host of The Nashville Network's Fire On the Mountain, Celebration Express, American Music Shop and PBS' Folkways. He has been a frequent guest on Hee Haw, Nashville Now and The Grand Ole Opry. Holt says, "Television can help keep traditional music alive in the modern world by reminding people what a wonderful treasure this lore is."

David also hosts Riverwalk: Classic Jazz From The Landing for Public Radio International. Riverwalk is broadcast nationally from San Antonio, Texas, and combines stories of the jazz greats told by Holt with the traditional jazz music of the Jim Cullum Jazz Band and guests including Lionel Hampton and Benny Carter.

Holt plays ten acoustic instruments and has released numerous recordings of traditional mountain music and southern folk tales. His most recent music CD, An Evening with Doc Watson and David Holt, presents David Holt in a live concert recording with living legend Doc Watson. “Doc is one of my mentors and heroes. Performing with him is as much fun as a musician can have,” says Holt.

 I Got A Bullfrog: Folksongs For The Fun Of It, features great American folk songs David has collected over the last twenty years and has garnered many awards.Grandfather’s Greatest Hits received a 1992 Grammy Award nomination for "Best Traditional Folk Recording." It is a collection of the great folk songs of early country music. Featured on the album are the legendary Chet Atkins, Doc Watson and Duane Eddy playing together for the first time. Although the recording is intended for listeners of all ages, Parents Magazine awarded the album its first Parents' Prize, calling it "The Very Best for the Very Young." Homespun Tapes has released four instructional videos by David, Folk Rhythms and Old Time Banjo I, II, III

 David is recognized as one of the nation's foremost storytellers. His newest recording, Spiders in the Hairdo: Modern Urban Legends, has just been nominated for a Grammy Award for 1999 in the Adult Spoken Word Category. In 1996,Stellaluna, a collection of bat stories and amazing bat facts, won the Grammy Award Why The Dog chases The Cat: Great Animal Stories with co-teller Bill Mooney, was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award. Mostly Ghostly Stories is a spine-tingling collection of chilling ghost tales. In addition, his earlier storytelling recordings, The Hairyman and Tailybone,both received the American Library Association's highest honor, the "Notable Recording." His video The Hogaphone and Other Stories is a collection of David's most requested tales. In 1994 August House published Ready-to Tell Tales edited by David Holt and Bill Mooney. This book brings together 41 tellable stories from the nation's best professional storytellers. In 2000, the much anticipated second volume, More Ready-To-Tell Tales was released. The Story Tellers Guide by Holt and Mooney (August House 1996) is a complete "how-to" for storytellers.

A native of Garland, Texas, Holt's family moved to Pacific Palisades, California, while he was in junior high school. He recalls his early musical and storytelling influences: "I grew up in a family of informal storytellers, and there was plenty to tell about our wild and wooly Texas forefathers. Storytelling was just a natural part of family life for me. I never thought about telling stories in public until I began to collect mountain music and came across interesting and unusual anecdotes from mountain folks. I began to use these stories in concerts and realized the power storytelling holds."

As for music, Holt says, "The only homemade music in our house was played by my father on bones and spoons that had been passed down in our family for five generations. In 1968, I sought out Carl Sprague, the first of the recorded singing cowboys. Mr. Sprague taught me to play the harmonica and regaled me with old-time cowboy stories. This experience introduced me to the excitement of learning from the source....the old-timers themselves."

After graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara magna cum laude in biology and art, Holt turned toward the southeastern mountains to pursue his growing interest in traditional music and storytelling. He moved to western North Carolina and immersed himself in the vital folk culture there. While collecting the traditional music of the mountains, Holt discovered folktales and true-life stories, which he began integrating into his concerts. He has been exploring and performing this unique form of entertainment ever since, using traditional music and stories in all his performances.

In 1975, Holt founded and directed the Appalachian Music Program at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is the only program of its kind in which students study, collect and learn traditional music and dance.

Since 1981, Holt has pursued a full-time career in entertainment. Today, he brings to the concert stage the fun and spirit of old-time music and storytelling. An evening with David Holt offers tales, ballads and tunes told, sung and played on the banjo, slide guitar, squeeze box, guitar, harmonica, bones, spoons and jaw harp. His audiences are constantly involved, learning to play the paper bag, applauding the vitality of his clog dancing, listening to the haunting sound of a 122 year old mountain banjo, or being unnerved by a ghost story.

The songs and tales Holt has collected for the past twenty years have become a part of the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to learn the unique music from the South's last traditional hammered dulcimer player, Virgil Craven. Says Holt: "Many of the people I learned from saw wagon trains; now they are watching space shuttles. They're the last of the pioneer generation. Their music and stories still hold a great deal of meaning and pleasure for us today."

The U.S. State Department has sponsored Holt's performances in many parts of the world as a musical ambassador, taking the sounds of American folk music to such diverse lands as Nepal, Thailand, South America and Africa.

Holt is a three-time winner of the Frets magazine readers poll for "best old-time banjoist." In addition, Esquire Magazine selected Holt for its first "Annual Register of Men and Women Who Are Changing America" in 1984. Called the "the best of the new generation," those chosen included such notables as Steven Spielberg, Sally Ride and Meryl Streep. All were selected for personal vision, originality and service to others.

Media by David Holt:

Alive and Kickin'

Doc Watson and David Holt ... LEGACY

Grandfather's Greatest Hits

I Got A Bullfrog

Reel & Rock

Why The Dog Chases The Cat

Mostly Gostly Stories

Taily Bone

Hairyman