Ted Lundy

Guitarist and banjo player Ted Lundy entered the world in Galax, Virginia, as part of one of the largest musical families in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He first took up the guitar at eight years old and, by fourteen, had taught himself the banjo through close study of Earl Scruggs’s innovative approach rather than the clawhammer style favored by his father. A year later he made his debut on a local radio broadcast. Two years after that he relocated to a larger station in Bluefield, West Virginia, where he soon joined Jimmy Williams and the Shady Valley Boys on banjo. The ensemble subsequently shifted operations to Bristol, Tennessee, and Lundy remained with them for a year. In his free time he performed alongside Roma Jackson and the Tennessee Pals as well as Alex Campbell and Ole Belle and the New River Boys. During the early 1960s Lundy established the Southern Mountain Boys alongside mandolinist Fred Hannah, guitarist Bob Paisley, and fiddler Jerry Lundy—Ted’s second cousin and the son of celebrated old-time fiddler Emmett Lundy. The group appeared in both Delaware and Galax before releasing its first recording in 1962 on Alex Campbell’s New River label. A second album surfaced in the early 1970s on a German imprint, after which three further albums appeared on Rounder. The Southern Mountain Boys continued performing until 1980, the year Lundy took his own life.