Joe Thompson near his house in Mebane. Photo by Lissa Gotwals

Been a long time coming.

One of the things people might not know about Joe Thompson is that he started playing as a very young man, which means that at age 89 his career as a fiddler runs close to eight decades.

Thompson and his cousin Odell were mainstays of the square dance circuit — both black and white dances — in the Piedmont during the string music heydays of the 1920s and ‘30s. They learned the style of black string bands from their fathers, and, like them, became highly sought-after players.

But as the music fell out of favor, Thompson, who lives near Mebane, became one of Orange County’s secret legends. Not so secret, of course, to those who kept the flame alive.

Thompson, who decided to carry on after Odell’s death in 1994, has worked quite hard himself to keep the flame alive, teaching and playing dances that still shake the floorboards of northern Orange.

He’s kept at it long enough to see his music come back, and last week he paid a visit to Raleigh where he was honored by both houses of the state legislature as one of the state’s true treasures. Beside him were his family and Odell’s and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, whose fiddler, Justin Robinson, has been at Thompson’s side learning his style and ways.

In addition to state honors, Thompson travels to Washington, D.C. in September for a concert as the recipient of on of this year’s National Heritage Fellowships awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

— From Staff Reports