North Carolina fiddler and banjo player Jim Scancarelli’s extensive career as a string band musician began in the early 1960s. A founding member of the Kilocycle Kowboys, one of Charlotte’s longest-lived bluegrass bands, he played banjo with the Mole Hill Highlanders, and in the 1980s formed Sanitary Cafe with fiddler Tommy Malboeuf. Through the 1970s, his annual recordings at the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention captured superlative music and performer interviews. Scancarelli also had a successful career as a freelance magazine artist and collaborated on the syndicated comic strips “Mutt and Jeff” and “Gasoline Alley,” eventually taking over authorship of the latter in 1986. This biography traces his creative trajectory in music, art, radio and television, and the cartooning industry.

Clawhammer banjo player Lewis M. Stern has written about traditional musicians including Dwight Diller, Tommy Malbeouf, and Jim Scancarelli. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Lewis M. Stern
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 236
Bibliographic Info: 76 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2022
pISBN: 978-1-4766-8600-4
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
One. Early Life 9
Two. Radio and TV Life 27
Three. Learning Music 39
Four. Making Music 63
Five. A Mindset to Cartoon 99
Six. Music, and the Banjo, in Gasoline Alley 127
Conclusion: The Sweep of His Life Story 147
Appendix 1: Discography and Videography: Jim Scancarelli 163
Appendix 2: Gasoline Alley Strips Referenced in Chapter Six 169
Interviewees 171
Chapter Notes 181
Bibliography 217
Index 221