Olden-time music in Eastland County

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BRANSON MO NEWS: Buy Photo”Fingerless Fiddler” Roy Thackerson uses a special wooden support to prop his fiddle up Friday at the country musical at the Olden Community Center. Thackerson lost most of the fingers on his left hand in a childhood accident but learned how to play guitar as a young mane and then later, country fiddle.(Photo: Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News)Buy PhotoOLDEN – The rain finally started falling after Roy Thackerson and I stepped outside.Muffled by the closed door behind us, the music from the next act at the Olden Community Center softly played as Thackerson and I began talking.“They have this musical the third Friday night of every month,” he said. “Except sometimes in December they’ll postpone it, you know, for Christmas. We usually make four or five of them a year.”You might know Thackerson, who now is 80, as the Fingerless Fiddler. When he was 6, an old dynamite cap he’d found exploded in his left hand, destroying most of those fingers.But even with only four nubs left, Thackerson learned how to play guitar by laying it flat and pressing down on the strings. Years after that, he applied the same strategy to playing the fiddle, using a custom-made wooden harness to support the instrument as he presses down on the neck.While Thackerson has played at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, these days he and his wife Donna stick to country musicals. It’s a little more laid back, which suits him fine.Buy Photo”Fingerless Fiddler” Roy Thackerson performs with Wesley Allbright (left), Finis Butler, and Billy Miller on Friday at the monthly country musical held in the Olden Community Center. The Eastland County show happens on the third Friday of each month and features musicians from all over the Big Country. ( …



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